For those who don’t know me, I have been involved in Out4Immigration as a volunteer grassroots organizer for much of the last year. My motivation is to help change the current situation that my partner and I find ourselves in because of the unfair immigration system that currently exists. If we were in a heterosexual relationship our immigration issues would be easily solved. But because our immigration system is broken, I can’t and so we are left waiting to see if we can pass the Uniting American Families Act, either as a stand alone bill or as part of the current efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Several months ago, I heard about local efforts in San Francisco to bring together a coalition of immigrant rights groups to work for comprehensive immigration reform. I began to attend meetings of the San Francisco Bay Area Coaliton for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (SFBCIR), a group of immigrant rights advocates representing many diverse communities. While the organizations that made up the coalition were very supportive and open to Out4Immigration being involved, many were not aware of the issues of LGBT immigrants and same-sex binational couples. After several weeks of attending and helping to educate the groups about UAFA and what we were working on, they began to embrace our issues as well. Since then they have come around to supporting passage of UAFA and making sure that it is included in CIR, and helping to make sure it is discussed in every action we are involved in.
So I was excited when SFBCIR asked O4I to participate in a national lobbying day in DC through the national efforts of Reform Immigration for America (RIFA), a nation-wide effort to pass immigration reform. Through the work of RIFA, an effort was made to bring 1100 (representing the number of people deported every day) civic leaders to DC push for immigration reform. This national effort called Relief, Reform, and Respect was an effort to make national congressional leaders understand the true human impact of our broken immigration system, and to call for a stop to the racist scapegoating that has gone on for too long, while pushing for immediate action.
Yet while the local coalition has embraced the issues of LGBT immigrants, I found a much harder sell with the national groups. Because national groups are desperately trying to bring in moderates and faith leaders, including the US Catholic Conference of Bishops and national evangelical leaders who have said they will not support a Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill that is inclusive of LGBT families, I quickly found that we could not publicly as a group push for the passage of UAFA. But we didn’t give up easily, and I quickly got reassurance from the local leaders that they would help to push UAFA where they could. All of the organizations expressed their personal support for including LGBT families, and many have individually endorsed these efforts. They have however found themselves constrained because of keeping together the larger coalition that is needed to push back against obstructionist Republican maneuvers on immigration reform.
I knew going to DC would be hard because of the difficult questions that would have to be raised and the frustration of trying to push legislation that not everyone agrees with. But I knew there were enough people committed to work on this that any efforts would be productive. Along the way, I was able to connect with staff from Immigration Equality, who expressed interest in getting involved with efforts as well, and who helped us strategize and work on our efforts. In addition, we gained more allies along the way because of the participation of San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, an openly gay Latino man who came to the US as an undocumented immigrant and who has become a strong spokesperson for the rights of LGBT people and immigrants, as well as an Episcopal priest who is himself in a binational relationship. Our testimonies and persistence was also so powerful that we kept finding strong supporters and unlikely allies
With RIFA leading the movement for CIR right now we have had some issues about pushing UAFA and inclusive CIR as part of their work. But it was really great being there and talking with national leaders of RIFA about the importance of including UAFA as part of inclusive CIR. I came bearing letters for all the Board members of the RIFA coalition about this, and received good responses from many. Many RIFA organizations have endorsed UAFA and inclusive CIR but not all. And I did get commitments from many RIFA Board members to make sure to help push UAFA resolutions and try to get more commitments on this. I'm feeling really hopeful and it would be great if more people want to help push these organizations to embrace UAFA. Maybe I can do this when I get back to San Francisco. Anyone want to help?
But the good news for LGBT families has largely gone unreported with so much focus on the DREAM Act. As part of the actions here in DC there was a forum to start the day of action on Sept. 15th, where members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus appeared- Sen. Robert Menendez from NJ, Rep. Luis Gutierrez from IL, and Rep. Nydia Velasquez from NY. Their big announcement is that Sen. Menendez is going to introduce a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill in the Senate right away. And word around town, although it was unclear until the bill is released, is that UAFA will be included in the Senate bill! What we do know is that Sen. Menendez has said that the bill will largely look like the Senate framework that had been released earlier this by Sen. Durbin, Sen. Schumer, Sen. Feinstein, and himself, which did have UAFA in it. Plus Sen. Menendez has been a co-sponsor of the UAFA stand alone bill. But this is great news because as you know we haven't been able to act yet because there was no bill yet in the Senate. We still need to make sure that UAFA is included in the House bill, where it is not included now, but where the chief sponsor Rep. Gutierrez has said he is committed to include it.
As a California delegation, we had some good meetings by ourselves. The day started with our group being taken out of the larger meeting to go have a personal meeting with Speaker Pelosi’s staff. As we found ourselves being led to the Speaker’s office, she actually walked by. One of the members of our delegation, a young Latina woman whose parents have been deported, quickly jumped into action and handed the Speaker a stack of personal petitions she had collected from fellow students at San Francisco State calling for immigration reform. She graciously took them. Our meeting with the Speaker’s office was difficult though. While supportive, they honestly discussed the difficulty of any immigration bills getting a fair vote with the divisive anti-immigrant environment in DC at the current moment. But we were able to honestly speak about our need for real immigration reform. Supervisor Campos spoke honestly as a gay man about the need to include LGBT families in any bill that comes forward. I personally also connected with several staff members about our issues as well and discussed following up with them.
The afternoon saw us doing direct actions on the offices of Republican Senates leaders, and forcefully pushing them for a vote on immigration reform. Our actions included Republican leaders and those who had been supportive of immigration reform before, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. George LeMiuex, and Sen. Orrin Hatch. The instructions we received for our actions were to enter the offices peacefully, sit down, have our spokespeople read our demands including to meet with the senator themselves or senior staff, and to stay as long as we could until the police were called. When the police arrived and told us to leave, we were then to have the faith leaders step up and ask everyone, including the police and senators’ staffers, to pray with us. Pro-immigrant prayers were then offered as long as we could continue, some as long as 15 minutes. After this we would either meet with the staff people or leave depending on what was offered. The Northern California group was selected to go to Mitch McConnell’s office. True to form this was one of the most confrontational meetings, and they flat our refused to meet with anyone unless they were from his home state of Kentucky. We did have one person from Kentucky, who was accompanied by our group spokesperson into a meeting that went nowhere. The staffer was confrontational, dismissive and offensive, repeating many anti-immigrant lies as facts and barely listening to our points.
Our day wrapped up with meetings with our home state Senators, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer. But we weren’t sure what would happen, since we didn’t have meetings scheduled, so we just dropped in. Sure enough, our visit with Sen. Feinstein’s office, while cordial, resulted in us being told no one was around to talk with us. Which was maybe because her office was filled with food and agricultural lobbyists. But they were nice enough to try and find someone to talk with us, though in the end no one was available. So we next journeyed to Sen. Boxer’s office who, because she has sponsored all the immigration bills and is a co-sponsor of UAFA, we thought it was important to visit. Her staffers were even nicer and very sympathetic, but again it was so late in the day nobody was available there either. Then as we were leaving, imagine our surprise as Sen. Boxer herself walked in. She was very friendly and gracious, and took time to listen to us and take a photo. She reiterated her support for CIR and UAFA before she had to go to her next meeting.
So after a whirlwind visit to DC, I find myself reflecting on the visits. While much of the conversations were difficult, often finding we couldn’t explicitly mention LGBT issues or UAFA, it was very important to be there. We did get constant reassurance that many of the organizations are committed to including UAFA and will work with us to make sure this happens. And we found some unlikely allies and lots of sympathetic people. And in the end, we heard that Senate will get an immigration reform bill to vote on, something we have been waiting for. And all indications are that it will include UAFA in the bill. Now the struggle really begins. As people fighting for UAFA we need to make sure that we are included in the final Senate bill. We also need to fight to make sure UAFA gets included in the House bill, as it is not currently but has received a commitment from Rep. Gutierrez that it be included. And most importantly, we now need to make sure that the bill gets voted on in the Senate and is passed. A potential good strategy moving forward for us is to actually put our efforts into Comprehensive Immigration Reform again and we have a bill coming up now. One idea for action is to contact Sen. Menendez and urge him to make sure that CIR does include UAFA. This would especially be important if there are people out there from New Jersey. But we should all try and contact his office if possible and share why this is important to us. Additionally, we should be contacting our own Senators to make sure they sign on to co-sponsor and support the CIR bill that Sen. Menendez will introduce, and urge them to also make sure that UAFA is included! I know now that I’m back in CA I will do this with Sen. Feinstein and Boxer. We also need to continue to push our Representatives to co-sponsor and support the Rep. Gutierrez’ CIR ASAP bill in the House, as well as contact Rep. Gutierrez to make sure that he includes UAFA in the House CIR bill. And we need to make sure these bills pass and are approved so we can finally see justice!
So good news from DC! Please feel free to contact me if you have questions and maybe we could strategize about our next steps and actions we can take!
Erik with Out4Immigration, San Francisco in DC last week working for Immigration Reform for all of us!
To become more involved, join Out4Immigration's Yahoo Group, where you can reach Erik and communicate with other members of our community of binationals and LGBT people working for immigration reform.
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