National
Biden administration ends ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy
Trump-era program made LGBTQ asylum seekers even more vulnerable
The Biden administration has officially ended a policy that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico.
The previous White House’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which became known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, took effect in 2019. Advocates sharply criticized MPP, in part, because it made LGBTQ asylum seekers who were forced to live in Tijuana, Ciudad JuĆ”rez, Matamoros and other Mexican border cities even more vulnerable to violence and persecution based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.
The White House in January suspended enrollment in MPP shortly after President Biden took office.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday in a memo he sent to acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller, acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tae Johnson and acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Tracy Renaud that announced the end of the Trump-era policy said roughly 11,200 asylum seekers with MPP cases have been allowed into the U.S. between Feb. 19 and May 25. Estuardo Cifuentes, a gay man from Guatemala who ran Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers, a program for LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants in Matamoros that the Resource Center Matamoros, a group that provides assistance to asylum seekers and migrants in the Mexican border city, helped create, is among them.
“MPP does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the programās extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls,” wrote Mayorkas in his memo.
“In deciding whether to maintain, modify, or terminate MPP, I have reflected on my own deeply held belief, which is shared throughout this administration, that the United States is both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, committed to increasing access to justice and offering protection to people fleeing persecution and torture through an asylum system that reaches decisions in a fair and timely manner,” he added. “To that end, the department is currently considering ways to implement long-needed reforms to our asylum system that are designed to shorten the amount of time it takes for migrants, including those seeking asylum, to have their cases adjudicated, while still ensuring adequate procedural safeguards and increasing access to counsel.”
Steve Roth, executive director of the Organization of Refuge, Asylum and Migration, a Minnesota-based organization that works with LGBTQ refugees and migrants around the world, welcomed the end of MPP.
“Weāre very happy to see, at long last, the termination of the dangerous and illegal āRemain in Mexicoā policy that was put in place by the Trump administration in early 2019,” Roth told the Washington Blade in a statement. “This policy forced asylum seekers at our Southern border ā including many LGBTIQ individuals ā to spend months and sometimes years in dangerous Mexican border towns while they waited for their asylum cases to be processed.”
Roth added MPP “was not in keeping with the United Statesā commitments to international asylum law and it was not reflective of who we are as a country.”
“Weāre grateful to President Biden and his administration for overturning this policy and for their commitment to a just and humane immigration and asylum system,” he said.
Immigration Equality Legal Director Bridget Crawford echoed Roth.
“President Trump created a humanitarian disaster with this policy that has resulted in well over a thousand asylum seekers being assaulted, raped, kidnapped or murdered while awaiting their asylum hearing, including LGBTQ and HIV-positive people,” Crawford told the Blade in a statement.Ā
Ending MPP is the latest in a series of steps the Biden administration has taken to reverse the previous White House’s hardline immigration policies.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told the Blade last month that protecting migrants and asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution based on their gender identity and sexual orientation is one of the administration’s global LGBTQ rights priorities.
Vice President Kamala Harris is among the administration officials who have publicly acknowledged that anti-LGBTQ violence is a “root cause” of migration from Central America. Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, whose district includes the border city of El Paso, and others have noted to the Blade that Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rule that closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the coronavirus pandemic, remains in place.
Congress has yet to consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill that Democrats introduced in February. Crawford in her statement also notes Mayorkas’ memo “does not address the many thousands of individuals who were wrongfully denied relief under the MPP program.”Ā
“These people no longer have ‘active’ cases, so they are not being processed by the administration, but many are living in Mexico or have been returned back to their countries where they face persecution.Ā Quite literally, some of these people have been handed a death sentence,” said Crawford. “The Biden administration has not addressed these cases yet and whether people wrongfully denied relief under the MPP program will have an opportunity to renew their claims.”Ā
National
Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history
Up until the early 2010s, if you searched āBabe Ruthā in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search āRuth, George Herman.ā
That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. āI’m a super tech geek, history geek,ā she says, āI love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.ā
Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. āI believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,ā she says. āLess than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.ā
Gwinn-Beckerās love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. āI was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.ā
ā[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,ā she says.
Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ā90s. āIt was an exciting time,ā she recounts, āif you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.ā
Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: āI was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.ā Quickly, she fell in love with āall of the incredible new tools.ā She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. āI was really into software, web, and database development.ā
But history eventually pulled her back. āTech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,ā she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, āI got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.ā
Gwinn-Beckerās research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. āEleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies donāt,ā she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive ā and what would be missing from the archive if we didnāt start preserving it now.
Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.
This process is not easy. āDigital preservation is more than scanning,ā says Gwinn-Becker. āMost commercial scannersā intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.ā
To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Beckerās team must take a photo with overhead cameras. āThere is an international standard,ā she says, āyou create an archival TIFF.ā
āItās the biggest possible file we can create now. Thatās how you future-proof.ā
Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. āItās more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19th-century projects,ā explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. āThe images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,ā she says.
Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. āIt’s a unique trove of content,ā says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. āItās important to have content quickly and easily,ā says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.
One of Gwinn-Beckerās favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls āhidden histories.ā
āWe [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.ā
Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. āWe work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.ā
Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. āItās making history in the process of preserving it,ā says Gwinn-Becker.
Preserving queer history, either through āhidden historiesā or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. āThink about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,ā she prompts. āIn a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,ā Gwinn-Becker says.
Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazineās Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman.
One name stuck out. āNever in my life did I think I’d be on the same list ā other than the obvious one ā with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,ā she said.
But she canāt focus on the win for too long. āWhen I go to sleep at night, I think āthere’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,āā she says, āWe have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.ā
(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)
National
Bidenās acknowledgment of LGBTQ History Month āconsequentialā
Equality Forum honors 31 new āiconsā as annual commemoration kicks off
President Joe Biden signed a letter acknowledging Equality Forumās LGBTQ History Month launch event held on Sunday, writing that, āby celebrating stories of bravery, resilience and joy, your example inspires hope in all people seeking a life true to who they are.ā
Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum executive director, said Bidenās letter is āconsequential.ā He noted that one year before the White House delivered a proclamation for Black History Month, it issued a letter signed by the president.
āIt’s our hope that next year, our nation’s 47th president will issue that proclamation for LGBT History Month,ā Lazin said.
Equality Forum is an LGBTQ civil rights organization with an educational focus based in Philadelphia. The groupās work includes coordinating LGBTQ History Month, producing documentary films and overseeing the application for and installation of government-approved queer historic markers.
When spearheading LGBTQ History Month for the first time back in 2006, Lazin said many pushed back against the idea. Some media outlets claimed it was trying to turn straight people gay or promote pedophilia.
But Lazin said the homophobic reactions died down when people were educated on topics that typically werenāt taught in a widespread way.
āWe were demonized, marginalized, and vilified,ā Lazin said. āOne of the certain principal ways you’re going to make headway is if you humanize who we are, and also educate people about the important contributions we make to our common society.ā
Education has always been Equality Forumās solution to societal backlash or controversy since its inception, Lazin said.
The organization got its start in 1993 under the name PrideFest Philadelphia. Lazin, who was the founder, said it was created during a time when Pride parades were the main focus of the LGBTQ community.
In an effort to shift focus onto civil rights issues, PrideFest hosted its first LGBTQ summit that eventually transformed into an event featuring national and international organizations. Lazin said it was an effort to educate people on LGBTQ history as well as inform the community on queer rights around the world.
Though that event was terminated in 2020, Lazin is still focused on educating both queer and straight people on LGBTQ civil rights. Equality Forum honors 31 āLGBTQ iconsā each year for every day in October.
This initiative began when Equality Forum started coordinating LGBTQ History Month back in 2006, but Lazin didnāt notice their efforts taking off until about five years in.
āIn year one, people thought, āOh yeah, those are like all the important names of the gay community,āā he said. āPeople paid a little bit more attention the following years, and all of a sudden they’re recognizing, āOh, in a certain sense I was clueless about the role models that the gay community has.āā
This yearās icons being recognized include names like singers George Michael, Luther Vandross, and Sam Smith; pioneering drag queen William Dorsey Swann; āThe Bachelorā star Colton Underwood; Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan; and longtime Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff.
Pocan received the International Role Model Award during Sundayās LGBTQ History Month launch event. Itās the longest-standing LGBTQ award in the nation, and has been presented to prominent figures like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
He said accepting the award allowed him to reflect on the progress thatās been made in a relatively short time.
āI was preparing to make some remarks for the event, and I realized that I’ve been kind of in the front row of a lot of the history making in the country, because more of our history is in the last several decades,ā Pocan told the Washington Blade. āThere are significant moments in the past, but where the real improvements have happened have been more recent.ā
In 1995, former President Bill Clinton invited Pocan, who is gay, and other LGBTQ elected officials to The White House for the first time. When they arrived and were going through security, Pocan said they noticed everyone was wearing blue gloves.
Initially assuming it was due to enhanced security following the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, Pocan said they later discovered the Secret Service agents thought they could contract AIDS from out elected officials.
He said the Secret Service issued an apology letter and the Clinton administration made it clear that wasnāt their policy. Even more memorable for Pocan was when then-Vice President Al Gore made it a point to shake everyoneās hands at the event.
Comparing that memory to Bidenās recent letter puts the advancements of LGBTQ rights into perspective for Pocan. He said thatās the reason recognizing and remembering queer history is vital.
āIf you donāt know the history, itās too easy to repeat it,ā he said.
The fight to recognize the global work done toward advancing LGBTQ civil rights, however, isnāt over, Lazin said.
Many states are working to restrict LGBTQ topics from being taught in schools. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1069 last year, dubbed āDonāt Say Gayā by critics, to prohibit lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The New College of Florida faced backlash when photos of hundreds of library books, many containing LGBTQ topics, overflowing a dumpster were shared online. A New College spokesperson said the books were “taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials.”
Despite what the future may hold for LGBTQ content in schools, Lazin said the resources Equality Forum promotes, including the website featuring 31 queer icons in October, are always available.
āAt least on this site, students, teachers, and guidance counselors have resources,ā he said. āSo if you’re an English teacher and you want to be celebrating LGBT History Month, click on poets, or click on authors. You’ve got a whole rich range of people to be able to bring into your curriculum.ā
The reality of what LGBTQ History Month has become today is more than the work of one organization; Lazin said itās the combined effort of local communities that are curious about their own history.
āWhile we could not possibly take on doing the history of all the cities around the country or in North America or around the world, it really has helped to encourage people to appreciate that history and to make sure that it is well documented,ā Lazin said.
National
LGBTQ groups mark National Hispanic Heritage Month
GLAAD screened ‘DĆmelo’ at Sept. 20 event in Los Angeles
Advocacy groups across the country are marking National Hispanic Heritage Month.
The Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles on Sept. 20 hosted a comedy night that featured Danielle Perez, Gabe GonzĆ”lez, Lorena Russ, and Roz Hernandez. The event, which GLAAD organized, also included a screening of “DĆmelo,” a digital series the organization produced with LatiNation that features interviews with Latino comedians.
A press release notes Damian Terriquez, Mimi Davila, Salina EsTitties, and Tony Rodriguez attended the event. GLAAD in a post on its website on Sept. 25 highlighted Essa Noche and other Latino drag queens.
“The art of drag has always been a vibrant expression of resistance, creativity, and identity, particularly within marginalized communities,” reads the post. “Latine drag artists not only embody the resilience and power of their heritage but also elevate queer voices in spaces where their visibility is often limited.”
EsTitties on Sept. 29 hosted QueerceaƱera, “an inclusive take on the coming-of-age quinceaƱera tradition throughout Latin America and the United States” the Los Angeles LGBT Center organized.
Celebrate Orgullo, which describes itself as the “first Hispanic and Indigenous LGBTQ+ festival in Greater Miami and Miami Beach,” will take place from Oct. 4-14. Unity Coalition|CoaliciĆ³n Unida, is organizing the events.
“The festival invites you to experience a warm and welcoming ‘wave’ of pride that celebrates what makes us unique while uniting us in a shared spirit of inclusion,” reads a press release.
GLSEN has posted to its website a list of resources for undocumented students.
“Especially in this political climate, it’s important not only to affirm LGBTQ Latinx identities with positive representation but also to ensure that students know how they’re protected, especially those who are among the most marginalized,” says GLSEN.
National Hispanic Heritage Month is from Sept. 15-Oct. 15.
Fenway Health in Boston on its website notes National Hispanic Heritage Month “honors and celebrates the vibrant histories, cultures, languages, traditions, values, and contributions of people whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.”
Hispanic Heritage Week began in 1968. It became National Hispanic Heritage Month in 1988.
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua mark their respective Independence Days on Sept. 15. Mexico’s Independence Day is on Sept. 16, and Chile’s Independence Day is on Sept. 18. DĆa de la Raza is Oct. 12.
“Here at Fenway Health, we are grateful every day for the many Latino/a/Ć© staff members, clients, patients, volunteers, and supporters that are part of our community,” said Fenway Health. Their contributions and perspectives help drive Fenwayās mission: To advocate for and deliver innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education and to center LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.”
President Joe Biden in his National Hispanic Heritage Month proclamation made a similar point.
“In our country, Latino leaders are striving for the American Dream and helping those around them reach it too,” he said. “From those who have been here for generations to those who have recently arrived, Latinos have pushed our great American experiment forward.”
The proclamation also acknowledges Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and other Latino members of his administration.
“I am proud to work with incredible Latino leaders, who are dedicated to bettering our nation every day,” said Biden.