Sixty Members of Congress, led by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), have issued a letter calling on President Obama and Congressional leaders to pass legislation which would end discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) immigrant families. The statement, which comes from members of the LGBT Equality Caucus, urges passage of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) and for inclusion of “LGBT binational families in comprehensive immigration reform.” Under current immigration law, lesbian and gay Americans are unable to sponsor their partners for residency in the United States, resulting in many such families living separately, or facing imminent separation, from their loved ones.

“No one,” the letter insists, “should be forced to choose between the person they love and the country they call home. It is time that our immigration laws kept families together instead of tearing them apart.”

“Passage of immigration reform will require every family standing with their neighbors and loved ones to work for change,” said Rachel B. Tiven, Executive Director of Immigration Equality, a national organization that works to end discrimination in U.S. immigration law. “The LGBT Equality Caucus’s letter signals that our champions in Congress, and the LGBT community, are ready to work for passage of reform that includes all families, including LGBT families. There are more than 36,000 lesbian and gay binational families counting on us to get this work done. “

The letter – spearheaded by Congresswoman Baldwin and Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Jared Polis (D-CO), Mike Honda (D-CA) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) – comes as Congress is expected to turn its attention to comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the near future. According to an analysis of U.S. census data, more than 36,000 lesbian and gay binational couples would benefit from an LGBT-inclusive immigration reform bill. Nearly half of those families, data show, are raising young children who face the possibility of being separated from one of their parents.

“Recognizing how important familes have been to our national development, the central mission of our immigration system has always been to reunify families.,” said Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). “In order to be true to that core value, comprehensive immigration reform must fix our system to include LGBT families. Failure to do so would leave us with a flawed system that continues to tear apart families, contrary to our legal and constitutional traditions.”

Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), the lead House sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act, which would also end discrimination against LGBT binational families, agreed.

“We must take the government out of the business of singling out LGBT families for discriminatory treatment and live up to our democratic ideal of equality under the law,” Nadler said. “I join my colleagues in calling on Congress and the White House to include the Uniting American Families Act, which I have introduced in every Congress since 2000, in any immigration reform legislation, and end discrimination against binational LGBT families.”

“There is simply no place for discrimination in America,” Congresswoman Baldwin added. “As we tackle comprehensive immigration reform, it’s imperative that we end discriminatory laws that hurt couples, their children and extended families, and their communities and employers.”

Immigration Equality has also significantly increased its legislative work on the issue, recently announcing the formation of a 501(c)4 Action Fund, to significant increase its lobbying work, and an expanded Washington, D.C. office.

“This is the moment,” Tiven said. “Introduction of comprehensive immigration reform legislation provides a unique opportunity to win a critical victory for LGBT families, and all families. We will work, non-stop, with our allies in the LGBT Equality Caucus, and the immigration rights movement, to do just that.”

Today Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens) joined with leading human rights advocates and a prominent member of the clergy to protest the draconian “Anti-Homosexuality Law” proposed in the Ugandan parliament. Immediately following the protest held outside the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Uganda to the United Nations in Manhattan, Congresswoman Maloney delivered a letter to the Mission requesting that representatives of the Ugandan government meet with human rights advocates to discuss the depth and breadth of international opposition to the measure. She was joined at today’s news conference by representatives of leading human rights organizations, including Immigration Equality, the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights First, as well as the Reverend Dr. Eugene Callender, former longtime pastor at St. James Presbyterian Church, Manhattan’s oldest African-American Presbyterian Church, who attended Thursday’s Congressional Prayer Breakfast at which President Barack Obama denounced Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act.

At the news conference, Representative Carolyn Maloney said, “The officially sanctioned bigotry in this bill is profoundly disturbing. It constitutes a gross violation of the universal values of individual liberty and human rights. Such a measure goes far beyond ugliness and ignorance: it is hate in its rawest form, and it has no place in the laws of any nation.”

The proposed legislation would subject those convicted of engaging in “any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex” to criminal sanctions punishable by a minimum of seven years in prison and, in cases of so-called “serial offenders” and HIV positive individuals, death. Among its many offensive and dangerous provisions, the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 would force individuals to reveal the whereabouts of gays and lesbians to the police or face prosecution, establish extra-territorial jurisdiction to prosecute lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) Ugandans living abroad, criminalize LGBT advocacy, and limit the distribution of information on HIV prevention.

Joining Representative Maloney at today’s news conference were leading human rights advocates. Among them were Rachel Tiven, Executive Director of Immigration Equality, who said, “Every day, Immigration Equality hears from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the globe who have been persecuted, stigmatized and subjected to unspeakable violence simply because of who they are. In the past year, we have won more than 75 asylum cases for LGBT people from around the world. We are proud to stand with Congresswoman Maloney and call on the United Nations, and the United States, to take an unmistakable stand against the continued persecution happening in Uganda. No one should be driven from their home because of who they are.”

“If passed, this bill will become a tool used not only to arrest and persecute LGBT people, but to attack their friends, family and supporters,” said Cary Alan Johnson, Executive Director of the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). “As members of a global movement for human rights, we cannot accept anything less than the complete dismissal of the bill,” he added.

Paul LeGendre, Director of the Fighting Discrimination Program at Human Rights First, said, “The Anti-Homosexuality Bill represents one of the harshest discriminatory measures ever proposed in any country. This bill would have disastrous effects for gay men and women in Uganda, would aggravate an already alarming trend of criminalization of homosexuality across Africa, and could spur Ugandan homosexuals to flee this persecution by attempting to seek refuge outside of the country. The international community must continue to voice its concern to the Ugandan authorities until the text of this bill is shredded and removed from consideration.”

“This is a threat to every Ugandan’s privacy, dignity, and basic freedoms,” said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “Uganda’s government must remember that universal human rights don’t come with exceptions.”

Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, told a cheering crowd during her “State of the LGBT Movement” address today (broadcast on CSPAN) that the LGBT movement must support comprehensive immigration reform for LGBT undocumented youth, for transgender immigration detainees, and also, critically, for binational gay and lesbian couples currently locked out of our “cruel, broken immigration system.”

She called on LGBT activists to stand by our immigration reform allies all the way through the end of the immigration reform effort. We must remind our allies to include LGBT families all the way through the end of the legislative process too!

Immigration Equality presented at a workshop on comprehensive immigration reform and LGBT inclusion along with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Dallas Chapter. Over 50 attendees enthusiastically worked in small groups to create action plans to support LGBT-inclusive comprehensive immigration reform (including calling and writing their members of Congress) and build alliances between local LGBT and immigration groups back in their home communities.

We didn’t have time to have the small groups report out, so as promised I am posting the summaries of their key action items here:

*Linking student groups to larger communities
*Encouraging employers and companies to support UAFA and inclusive comprehensive immigration reform
*Educating within communities and speaking with individuals to raise awareness
*Dispelling myths through personal anecdotes
*Challenging ourselves to think
*Bringing LGBTQ peers together
*Coalition building with immigration advocacy groups
*Holding LGBTQ groups and political organizations accountable to support immigration reform
*Helping people understand it’s all about family
*Hosting a forum on immigration equality with an emphasis on Asian / Pacific Islanders
*Connecting with statewide immigration organizations
*Educating student networks on immigration reform and how it affects the LGBT community
*Getting the word out on social networks such as Facebook
*Hosting “Platica” (talk) on immigration reform among queer women of color
*Working more with community immigrant groups to build coalitions
*Urging Immigration Equality and other LGBT immigration groups to put a higher priority on sibling sponsorship for LGBT people
*Leveraging our personal networks more to raise awareness about intersections between LGBT and immigrant rights
*Working more with campus groups and universities on immigration rights, comprehensive immigration reform, the Dream Act, and UAFA
*Publicity including letters to editors and educational events highlighting community geneologies
*Outreach and coalitions with youth, students, and local progressive movements
*Community forums
*Creating strategies to reach out to specific communities and groups with messages tailored to their needs including: African-American communities, communities of faith, lay people, city councils, and the private sector.

Thank you to all the fabulous LGBT and allied grassroots activists who participated. You generated an incredible recipe for movement building across communities for inclusive immigration reform!

On Monday afternoon, Immigration Equality executive director Rachel Tiven will join Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) in New York to demand a meeting with representatives of the Ugandan government, at Uganda’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, to convey the depth and breadth of international opposition to a proposed measure, in that country, which would subject LGBT persons to criminal sanctions, including the death penalty

Congresswoman Maloney (pictured) – a staunch LGBT supporter and co-sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act – has invited human rights advocates and members of the clergy to appear with her on Monday to protest the proposed death penalty and other draconian criminal sanctions for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons in Uganda and to demand a meeting with representatives of the Ugandan government.

Immigration Equality has represented countless individuals, including Ugandans, who have sought asylum in the United States because of severe anti-gay climates around the world. In 2007, we successfully represented a lesbian from Uganda whose family, upon learning of her sexual orientation, hired someone to rape her in her family home. The case – decided in a court right below the Supreme Court – recognized that lesbians can win asylum when they have faced violence by private actors – even their own family members. It was only the second published decision to affirm and establish a lesbian’s right to seek asylum – the first was argued by Immigration Equality founder Suzanne Goldberg.

For more information on our asylum work, click here. And we’ll have more coverage of Congresswoman Maloney’s event, including a transcript of Rachel’s remarks, here on the blog on Monday afternoon.

In a thrilling show of solidarity between the immigration and LGBT movements, Tom Saenz, the president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) delivered the opening keynote address for the Creating Change conference in Dallas, Texas.

Creating Change, the largest national conference for LGBT equality, is put on each year by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. MALDEF is a premiere national civil rights organization, leading in many issue areas of significance to the Latino community, including pressing for comprehensive immigration reform. Saenz, MALDEF’s President, is a veteran civil rights leaders and was formerly Counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Tonight, Saenz told the audience of over 1,000 that it was the largest and most enthusiastic indoor crowd he had spoken to as MALDEF president. He spoke of the connections between the Latino and LGBT communities including the fact that large sectors of both populations must live in the shadows with less than full equality.

Saenz called for comprehensive immigration reform that would bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and provide them with critical consitutional rights. He also called for full equality for the LGBT community. And he insisted repeatedly that comprehensive immigration reform will not be comprehensive without UAFA and LGBT families included. He pointed out that insisting on UAFA’s passage also focuses the immigration debate back the American immigration system’s core principle: family unification.

MALDEF and Thomas Saenz have been consistently outspoken in their demand that all immigrants be included in comprehensive immigration reform, including gay and lesbian couples. In an interview last fall, Saenz told the Associated Press that comprehensive immigration reform must include in its key components “creat[ing] equity for same sex partners who want to come to the U.S. or get green cards.” Saenz does not see the LGBT community as separate from the Latino community, but both integral parts of the other. MALDEF feels it must represent LGBT Latinos as part of its constituency, just as the LGBT movement must represent and fight for immigrants as part of our community.

MALDEF and Immigration Equality have a close working partnership. Last year, MALDEF co-presented at an LGBT Equality Caucus briefing on immigration, along with Congressman Nadler, Shirley Tan, and Immigration Equality. MALDEF has also consulted with Immigration Equality and other LGBT organizations to ensure that LGBT Latinos are counted in the next U.S. census, and we are partnering to ensure that critical immigration reform information reaches the LGBT community and LGBT immigration issues reach the Latino community.

Immigration Equality salutes Tom Saenz for being a critical national leader for civil rights. We also commend the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and Creating Change organizers for recognizing how critical immigration reform is to the LGBT community.

Immigration Equality supporters attending the Creating Change conference in Dallas, Texas, will not want to miss tonight’s opening address, by Thomas Saenz, on comprehensive immigration reform.

Saenz (pictured), who heads up the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), has been a staunch supporter of LGBT-inclusive immigration reform. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Saenz noted that MALDEF “fully expects” work to begin in Congress this year on comprehensive immigration reform. He added that “[comprehensive immigration reform] needs to move” and needs to include key elements such as “address[ing] the need for foreign agricultural workers, provid[ing] legal status to high school graduates brought to the country illegally as children, and creat[ing] equity for same sex partners who want to come to the U.S. or get green cards.”

If you’re in Dallas for Creating Change, don’t pass up this unique opportunity to hear one of the most important voices in the movement for immigration reform. The conference’s opening address by Saenz kicks off this evening at 8pm.

For more information, click here.

UPDATE: Our staff on the ground in Dallas will be tweeting tonight’s remarks by Tom Saenz. Follow us on Twitter (IEquality) for breaking news about his speech this evening.

Dan Maffei, a freshman Democrat from New York’s 25th District, has become the 120th House member to cosponsor the Uniting American Families Act.

Maffei’s cosponsorship brings the number of cosponsors on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee of jurisdiction over immigration bills, to 17 out of the 24 Democrats on the committee. Legislation needs 21 votes to be passed out of this committee.

UAFA has more cosponsors in the House than any other piece of immigration legislation.

Immigration Equality wants to give a huge shout out to all of the grassroots – you – who are so critical to bringing new supporters such as Rep. Maffei to UAFA. When we visit offices on capitol hill, they usually say, “we’ve heard a lot on this issue from constituents” – which makes them much more interested in and likely to become active supporters. You are setting the stage for UAFA’s ultimate success! Thank you!

Please take one more step today, and direct 5 friends and family to contact their members of Congress at by clicking here.

As a day about love and commitment, Valentine’s day can be a special opportunity to raise awareness about the thousands of loving couples separated by our country’s unfair immigration laws. This year, you can mark the occasion by hosting a house party to support our work to include binational families in immigration reform.

HOSTS: Immigration Equality is looking for volunteers across the country to host their own Valentine’s house party fundraisers. Not only do we wish to raise awareness with our nearest and dearest about the injustices we face as binational families, we also need to raise the funds we will need to win full equality.

Each house party will be invited to join a national conference call featuring Executive Director Rachel Tiven, and every host will receive their very own house party tool kit.

Fabulous hosts have already scheduled parties in these cities:

* Los Angeles
* New York
* Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
* San Francisco
* Seattle
* Washington, D.C.
* Your hometown?

Interested hosts should contact Win Chesson to add your hometown to the mix!

Immigration Equality is proud to be partnering with Change.org for a new campaign, Ideas for Change in America, that highlights the building momentum for change in our country.

Beginning today, Change.org visitors are invited to vote for the best ideas for changing our country. At the end of the campaign, the top 10 ideas will be presented at an event in Washington, D.C., with relevant members of the Obama Administration . . . and Change.org will join 10 partner organizations in launching a grassroots campaign to see those ideas for change implemented, too.

You can log on, beginning today, and vote to “Pass LGBT-Inclusive Immigration Reform.”

By voting, you will be calling on our leaders to “pass the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), either as part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, or a stand-alone measure.”

With your help – and your vote – we can send a strong message that ending discrimination against our families is an idea, for change, whose time has come.

Please join us, and our partners at Change.org, in continuing to build the grassroots movement we need for change.

Click here, cast your vote, and ask your friends to do the same.

In the wake of Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts, we have seen a lot of speculation – both inside the Beltway and around the country – about what the results in the Bay State will mean for the national political agenda. Already, media pundits, op-ed pages and talk radio are awash in predictions, proposals and premonitions about what the future holds.

The truth, however, is that it’s probably too early to tell what the coming months will hold for our families. What we can tell you today, however, is this: Immigration Equality is still working, non-stop, to pass legislation that would end discrimination against LGBT binational couples.

On Wednesday morning, we were back on Capitol Hill, meeting with key offices about the need to pass LGBT-inclusive immigration reform. We will not rest until we get the job done.

We also know this: The American people, in poll after poll, want our country’s broken immigration system fixed. And they want to be fair to families and keep them together.

That’s a message with bipartisan appeal. And it’s one we continue to deliver to both Democratic and Republican offices.

Passing immigration reform has always been predicated on finding GOP lawmakers who will stand with Democratic allies to get the job done. History has shown that immigration is not as partisan as some other issues. There are Republican lawmakers who support fixing the system, and Democratic lawmakers who aren’t yet where we’d like them to be. That was true in 2007, when Congress last tackled immigration reform, and it is true today.

As we have said here on our blog before, Immigration Equality’s strategy has always been to focus on every possible venue for victory. We continue to advocate for the Uniting American Families Act . . . for the inclusive Reuniting Families Act . . . and for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes our families, too. That has not changed.

The coming weeks will undoubtedly tell us much more about the impact of Tuesday’s election on immigration reform. As we learn more, we’ll share what we know with you here on our site. We don’t know enough, just yet, to make any long-term predictions. But we do know that, whatever the future holds, we will always fight for our families.

And rest assured that today, and every day, our work on your behalf continues unabated. As a friend in Massachusetts once said, “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”