If you haven't read it already, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas' extraordinary story of his life as an undocumented immigrant in the United States will move you to tears -- unless, that is, you have ice water running through your veins. You must read it; it's quite possibly the most important and telling thing you will read about what America is in a long time.
I just saw Vargas this past weekend at the Netroots Nation conference in Minneapolis. He moderated a panel, "Obama, the Tea Party and 2012: The Role of Race in Electoral Politics." It wasn't what you might expect from the title -- but more on that in a moment. I first want to highlight a couple of points in Vargas' story that relate to religious activism around immigration reform.
In his piece, Vargas discusses how his mother and grandparents, knowing that they got him into the United States without proper documentation, believed his undocumented status could eventually be rectified if he married an American citizen. But what they didn't know was that Vargas is gay. He therefore falls into a category of undocumented immigrants who, unlike straight people, have no marriage-related immigration rights. That is, the American citizen in LGBT binational couples, even if they are legally married in a state or country that permits it, cannot sponsor their undocumented spouse for citizenship. Over 30,000 families in the United States face possible deportation of one partner (many of whom are parents) because of this gap in the law. More @ Religion Dispatches.
No comments:
Post a Comment