Immigration Reform Could Include Gays

U.S. representative Luis Gutierrez of Chicago said Thursday that foreign-born partners of gay and lesbian Americans should have the same rights to citizenship as those of heterosexual Americans -- and that he would fight to include that proposal in his immigration reform bill.

"The underlying part of any comprehensive immigration bill is family unity," Gutierrez told the Chicago Tribune. "We need to speak more clearly and more articulately and more frequently that the LGBT community, and same-sex couples and their binational relationships, are part of families."

Gutierrez is proposing that language from the Uniting American Families Act, which has more than 100 sponsors in the House and 20 in the Senate, be integrated into the comprehensive immigration reform bill he and others introduced in December.

However, the prospect for that bill, which has 97 cosponsors, is unclear in this reelection year, the Tribune reports.