This article was submitted by John, a recent law school graduate who’s scheduled to start a job at a firm later this year.

“Your visa petition . . . for classification of Anthony Corbett Sullivan as the spouse of a United States citizen [is] denied for the following reasons: You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots.”  Letter from Immigration and Naturalization Service to Richard Adams (Nov. 24, 1975).

Perhaps the cruelest form of governmental discrimination faced by gays and lesbians in America is that they cannot sponsor a foreign-born life partner for permanent residency.  A straight foreigner can gain legal status by merely becoming a citizen’s fiancée.  But gay and lesbian couples are strangers in the eyes of an immigration judge, even if their relationship spans the entirety of their adult lives.

The issue of immigration equality is an intensely personal one for me.  My partner of nearly five years is an immigrant from India, and I am a United States citizen.  He is currently here on a work visa, but it increasingly appears that he’ll lose his job within the next year.  And when he loses his job, he’ll lose his work visa and be forced to leave the United States.

We’re hardly the only ones who are afflicted by this discrimination.  About 36,000 LGBT couples in America face separation because one of them is from a foreign country.

My partner and I are absolutely committed to staying together, even if that means I’ll have to move abroad.  Obviously, though, I don’t want to leave my job, family, and friends.  I don’t want to leave my home.  And I can’t believe that my country is threatening me with a de facto exile.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  The solution is the Uniting American Families Act (the “UAFA”).

The UAFA would allow a gay or lesbian citizen to sponsor a foreign-born “permanent partner.”  This law would not increase illegal immigration, because it imposes on gay and lesbian couples the same stringent requirements that prevent straight couples from committing marriage fraud.

The UAFA has been proposed in both the House and Senate for the last few sessions of Congress.  It’s gained many co-sponsors over the years: 120 in the House and 23 in the Senate.

Now the great hope is that the text of the UAFA would be included in the comprehensive immigration reform bill that Congress is planning to work on later this year.  The best thing that you can do to help is to contact your federal representatives and ask them to include the UAFA as part of comprehensive immigration reform.  You can reach them by calling the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or go to the online switchboard.  The bill numbers are H.R. 1024 and S. 424.  If you happen to live in New York, it would especially useful for you to call Sen. Schumer, since he’s playing the main role in drafting the Senate bill, but so far seems reluctant to include the UAFA.

The harm imposed by the discrimination in our immigration laws isn’t just symbolic or stigmatizing.  It is literally forcing me to leave my job, friends, family, and home.  Ending this needless cruelty should be at the forefront of LGBTs’ legislative agenda, and it should be the goal of any legislator with a conscience.

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