Why Marriage Equality Isn’t the Only LGBT Immigration Issue

Immigration affects all Americans, including members of the LGBT community.  My client, Frank Paz (name changed at client’s request), was born in Mexico.  His family brought him to the U.S. at 14.  He learned English quickly and graduated high school with honors.  Frank attended and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.  After college, his undocumented status hindered him from using his degree and fulfilling his dream of becoming a teacher.

In December 2011, Frank’s life changed forever when he was detained by immigration in Houston, Texas.  Frank divulged that he is gay at his initial interview with a detention officer.  As a result, he was placed in solitary confinement.  Generally, detention facilities use solitary confinement as a means of punishing and controlling dangerous and/or insubordinate detainees.  Frank was neither.  Frank was sent to solitary confinement because he is gay. 

Frank spent a week in a small cell with no windows.  He knew that other detainees were housed in nearby cells but he could not talk to them.  The only sounds he heard were the cries of a mentally ill detainee. Each day Frank worked hard to fight loneliness, depression, and anxiety.  There were times when he felt like he was losing his mind. 

Frank and I battled for his release from solitary confinement.  Frank made formal requests with his detention officer and the warden.  Both told him that he was held in solitary confinement for his own protection.  Frank told them that he did not want their "protection".  He even offered to sign a waiver of liability absolving the government and the detention facility of any liability were he to be harmed. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses our tax dollars to pay private corporations to run facilities that detain immigrants.  These corporations make approximately $122 dollars per day per detainee.  They make approximately three times more for a detainee in solitary confinement.  However, when I spoke to the ICE officer in charge of Frank’s case, he said that he had no control over who the warden of the detention facility placed in solitary confinement.  This demonstrated the lack of accountability and oversight to which these for-profit prisons are submitted.  The detention officer also reiterated that Frank was in solitary confinement for his own protection.  Despite numerous attempts to contact the warden, I did not receive a response.  He was out of the office. It was the Christmas holidays after all. 

Frank eventually bonded out of detention.  In April 2012 the government administratively closed his case.  He received permission to work and is finally able to use his college degree and teaching certificate as a high school Spanish teacher.  Frank feels great pride that he has the ability to help mold and motivate future engineers, doctors, and nurses.  His students do not know that Frank is gay or undocumented, and he hopes that knowledge would not change their opinion of him.  Frank loves the United States and he feels American in mind, body, and spirit.  Frank has overcome a great deal.  However, without inclusive immigration reform his U.S. citizen partner cannot petition for him.

The United States is a nation of immigrants that is founded on ideals of fairness and equality.  When we allow injustice and inequality to damage one sector of the population, we all suffer.  When LGBT immigrants are treated inhumanely, we perpetuate the idea that the LGBT community does not deserve true equality.  It undermines the argument for marriage equality and weakens the fight for human rights for all. 

We can no longer tolerate the inhumane treatment of the LGBT community in immigration detention.  We need inclusive immigration reform that will hold accountable the government and the corporations which make millions off of detaining immigrants.  We need reform that will make the government grant reasonable bonds to individuals who are not a danger to the community.  We need reform where less costly and more effective alternatives to detention are the first option; where detention is reserved only for individuals who are a danger to the community.  We need the LGBT community to join the fight for an inclusive immigration reform that will benefit us all.