Comments on: Asylum not the answer for bi-national couples

By: Fausto Fernandez

Fausto Fernandez — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:15:48 +0000

Asylum cannot be the answer in many cases. How can you request asylum on a sexual orientation basis when you are from, say, Spain or Argentina? And even if you are from a homophobic country you have to prove that the GOVERNMENT of that country has threatened you specifically. ICE should expedite asylum cases for those who have a case, whteher married or not, and let’s keep pushing on DOMA

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 20:50:29 +0000

IE lost me after their baffling insistence on tying bi-national couples to Comprehensive Immigration Reform, long after it was clear that the administration was focusing on health care and wouldn’t get around to CIR. That it’s 2012 and the USA is still far behind the western world on this issue should signify that IE’s strategies aren’t working.

By: Stef Taske

Stef Taske — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 22:56:55 +0000

I cannot begin to tell you how insulting it is to hear Victoria Nelilson, of Immigration Equality, say to families like mine, “There is something that the Obama administration could do immediately, however, to provide relief to lesbian and gay bi-national couples. It could stop denying green card applications and hold them in abeyance, without making a decision on them, until there is a final judicial decision on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

What? How does that provide ANY degree of relief? A final judicial decision on DOMA could be six months or six years away! The truth is that asylum has been redefined in modern times (per the United Nation’s sanctioned Yogyakarta Principles and others), and it is not a stretch to connect “humanitarian” with “asylum” within the current definitions of asylum. With all due respect to Immigration Equality, they would serve their constituents well to think ahead of the game and not play by the rules all the time.