When Marriage Equality & Immigration Policy Intersect

Editors' Note: Guest blogger Ruben Gonzales is the Deputy Vice President of Resource Development for the National Council of La Raza. I asked my fiancé to marry me on an Alaskan cruise with my family, at sunset on one of the ship's decks. We had already been together for seven years, but we had resolved not to get married until we could marry legally. It was a long time coming and something that, when we started dating twelve years ago, we thought might never happen. In two weeks, Jo...

OUTLAW: My Life As an Undocumented Immigrant

by Jose Antonio Vargas for DefineAmerican.com This article was originally published in the New York Times Magazine. One August morning nearly two decades ago, my mother woke me and put me in a cab. She handed me a jacket. "Baka malamig doon" were among the few words she said. ("It might be cold there.") When I arrived at the Philippines' Ninoy Aquino International Airport with her, my aunt and a family friend, I was introduced to a man I'd never seen. They told me he was my uncle. He h...

Colbert Report: Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas explains which is more difficult: coming out of the closet as a gay man or as a border gay. The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Gay Undocumented Immigrant Released From Rikers After Acquittal

By Monika Fabian A month ago, a jury found Ricardo Muñiz innocent of assaulting a 65-year-old man during a fight outside a Brooklyn bar in July 2009. The dispute began when two men harassed Muñiz and a friend of his with homophobic epithets in the bar, according to published reports. Yet in spite being cleared of all criminal charges, it appeared as if Muñiz would remain behind bars. During his pre-trial detention, Muñiz, 25, became ensnared in the Rikers Island Criminal Alien Progr...

Bi-National Lesbian Couple Can Press US Marriage Claim

BY PAUL SCHINDLER In what appears to be the first such action of its type, an Immigration Judge in Manhattan has adjourned deportation proceedings for the Argentine lesbian spouse of an American citizen to allow the couple to proceed with their application to have their marriage recognized for purposes of federal immigration law. Monica Alcota, 35, who came to the US a decade ago, married her partner of nearly three years, 25-year-old Cristina Ojeda, last August in Connecticut. The c...

Weekly Diaspora: Lawless judges, immigrant soldiers and deportee pardons

Here’s the harsh truth about our immigration system: When 392,000 immigrants are detained per year and 33,000 more are detained everyday with limited staff and minimal federal oversight, institutional misconduct is inevitable. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving record-breaking numbers of immigrants through its ancillary agencies and, in the process, immigrant women are being raped [1] by Border Patrol agents, LGBT detainees are being sexually assaulted [2] at Immig...