Gay Americans
have long been denied the right to live at home with their
noncitizen partners. But Congress may finally be on the
verge of changing all that.
For more than two
decades, Matthew has lived a closeted existence in the
Middle East with his partner.
Jet-lagged and
nervous, Matthew lands at New York City’s John F.
Kennedy International Airport dreading the next leg of
the journey. He’s traveling home with his
partner, a man with whom he’s spent the last 22
years in the capital of an undisclosed Middle Eastern
country not known for its social tolerance. The drill
is always the same: Somewhere between stumbling off
the plane, shuffling through the jet bridge with passports
in hand, and entering separate lines at immigration
(“U.S. Citizens Only” and
“Noncitizens”), the men go from intimates
living in a strange land to strangers who avoid making
eye contact through the glass wall that divides them.
They take these precautions, Matthew says, because he fears
that his partner could be barred from entry if
there’s any evidence suggesting he might be
enticed to stay in the United States.
Invariably,
Matthew’s partner is pulled aside for questioning
anyway. His Middle Eastern ethnicity and the
impression that he’s traveling alone are red
flags for immigration officers in the post-9/11 world. But
he is not traveling alone, which is why
Matthew’s dread turns into rage. “He is led
off, I do not know where,” he says. “I want to
help him. I want to ask what the hell they are doing
with him, to keep their hands off him.… And I
sob as I look through the glass.”
Matthew (not his
real name) moved to the Middle East in 1986 for work. He
doesn’t stay there because of its charm. Like many of
the estimated 36,000 gay men and women who are by law
ineligible to sponsor their foreign-national partners
for permanent residency, he has three choices: Live in
the United States with his undocumented partner and face
uncertain consequences, live alone, or, as he’s
chosen to do for the majority of his adult life, live
with his partner overseas. Today, the two men reside
in a quiet neighborhood of side-by-side town houses; they
have separate entrances for keeping up appearances, though
an interior hallway joins their two units.
“This is the life we live,” he says.
“It’s not a life of tragedy or
bitterness. But it is a life of lying and hiding --
and not a life that an American citizen and taxpayer should
lead.”
Perhaps
it’s no surprise that the injustice faced by Matthew,
his partner, and thousands of other gay couples
historically has failed to achieve a critical mass of
outrage, despite persistent grassroots efforts and a
series of legislative attempts to address the inequity. Most
Americans simply will never find themselves falling in love
and building a life with a person who is forever
forced into the “Noncitizens” line at
JFK. Only 6% of same-sex unmarried couples are binational,
according to one study by UCLA School of Law’s
Williams Institute, a think tank focusing on laws
regarding sexual orientation, and the affected couples
who are active in lobbying for policy reforms have worked
largely behind the scenes -- particularly if a
nonresident partner is in the country illegally.
This year the
landscape is changing. In June the Department of Health and
Human Services enacted policy reforms that will bring down
one long-standing barrier to immigration, a ban on
HIV-positive foreign visitors (George W. Bush last
year signed a bill into law approving the change but
did not implement it). And in Congress two bills that would
grant immigration rights to gay couples have given the issue
unprecedented attention in the fractious battle over
immigration reform expected to play out in the
upcoming autumn legislative session. Should the bills
be included in a larger immigration package (one that could
ultimately include a path to citizenship for an estimated 12
million illegal immigrants), they could become a
significant step for gay rights under the Obama
administration. For the first time the federal government
would acknowledge the rights of gays and lesbians to live in
this country with their partner of choice, regardless
of national origin.
The timing of the
legislation is unclear. Democratic Senate leaders have
pushed to pass a bill by year’s end but are mired in
the colossal tug-of-war that is health care reform,
and sources say a vote on immigration likely
won’t happen until next year. Hispanic groups and
pro-immigration lobbies that saw reform attempts in Congress
go down in flames in 2007 also are cautious.
“They want to do it right this time and move
forward smartly,” says one lobbyist, “which
means taking the time to build consensus.”
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