Community Forum on LGBT Immigration Rights

Community Forum on LGBT Immigration Rights: How U.S. Immigration Law Affects Same-Sex Binational Couples, People with HIV/AIDS and Transgendered Individuals

The Forum will provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions and explore issues regarding immigration rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. The forum will address the discriminatory impact current U.S. immigration law has on binational same-sex couples, those with HIV/AIDS and transgendered immigrants, asylum issues, and visa requirements for work, students, and investors.

LGBT immigrants face specific barriers to life in the United States that are often not addressed by either the larger immigrant rights movement or the LGBT community. For example, when immigrant rights activists speak of respecting "family unity" there is no discussion about the protection of LGBT families, and the issues that they are facing. Similarly, many in the LGBT community are unaware of the discrimination in immigration law that prohibits a U.S. citizen from sponsoring their same-sex partner for a green card or denies a foreign person with HIV/AIDS the right to enter the country. LGBT immigrants and their American partners face both homophobia and xenophobia under current U.S. immigration law.

Organizations presenting include Out4Immigration, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), Queers for Economic Justice, and Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF). A panel of immigration lawyers will be available for individual general questions.