|
|||||
   It’s great that 60 members of the House of Representatives LGBT Equality Caucus, led by Rep. Tammy Baldwin, have publicly called for the inclusion of LGBT immigration rights in any comprehensive immigration reform legislation. http://immigrationequality.org/blog/?p=1606 Yet according to our current Act on Principles pubic whip count, there are 118 members of the House who already have gone on record as co-sponsors of H.R. 1024, the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), the LGBT immigration rights bill authored by Rep. Jerry Nadler. http://www.actonprinciples.org/uafa-house/ There are an additional two members of the House (Reps. Baca and Cohen) who have gone on record in support of H.R. 2709 the Reuniting Families Act (RFA), a broader family immigration bill authored by Rep. Mike Honda, which fully incorporates UAFA. http://www.actonprinciples.org/rfa-house/ While the 60 signers of the open letter and our hard-working advocates for LGBT immigration rights are to be commended for their leadership on moving this issue forward, we collectively still have a long way to go to achieve LGBT immigration equality… At a minimum, we need ALL 118 co-sponsors of UAFA and two additional co-sponsors of RFA to go on the public record in support of inclusion of LGBT immigration rights in comprehensive immigration reform. But even securing the public commitment of those 120 members will still mean we are long, long way from the 218 votes we need for a majority position to secure our LGBT immigration rights. Finally, we also need parallel work on our Senators, where there are only 24 co-sponsors of UAFA, a long way from the 51 votes we will need… Each one of you reading this can do something to help move this forward… Use our Act on Principles public whip counts to identify what positions your Representative and Senators have taken on UAFA (and RFA) and lobby for their sponsorship of both bills and their public support for inclusion of LGBT immigration rights in comprehensive immigration reform. Use the public whip count tool to update any positions you learn about so the rest of us know where to focus our lobbying efforts. Act on principles. No delay. No excuses. For more background on LGBT immigration rights: http://www.actonprinciples.org/2009/10/26/lgbt-and-immigrant-rights-are-civil-rights-–-support-uafa-and-rfa-aop-immigration/
This was reported on Minnesota Independent – Ellison urges support for binational same-sex couples (http://minnesotaindependent.com/54939/ellison-urges-support-for-binational-same-sex-couples). The LGBT Caucus in the house sent a letter to Dear President Obama, Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schumer, and Chairwoman Lofgren to “express our stong support for a comprehensive immigration reform bill which would end discrimination against We urge Congress to include the Uniting American Families Act (H.R. 1024lS. 424) in any comprehensive immigration reform legislation.” We are glad that the LGBT Caucus has taken a stand for equal immigration rights for LGBT Binational Couples and hope that the stakeholders that will be introducing the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill will ensure that ALL Families (including LGBT Families) are included in their reform bill. We also urged you to join our petition to Sen Schumer and Rep Lofgren to make sure that we are included in their reform bill. The link to the petition is http://www.change.org/actions/view/urge_sen_schumer_and_rep_lofgren_to_include_lgbt_families_in_their_comprehensive_immigration_bill http://minnesotaindependent.com/54939/ellison-urges-support-for-binational-same-sex-couples
|
 
 | ||||
