Immigration rights for same-sex couples possible?

Two men with marriage license at May 2009 rally against Prop 8. By Heather Tirado Gilligan

You’re from the United States. You fall in love with a foreign national.  Straight couples have legal recourse in this situation: get married and sponsor your spouse for citizenship.

Gay couples in this situation have no legal recourse, an issue that SF Weekly recently highlighted with the stories of several same-sex couples who were separated by US immigration law, or had one partner living in the United States illegally.

Because the federal Defense of Marriage Act prohibits legal recognition of same-sex relationships, couples married in California, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont can’t sponsor their spouses for citizenship either.

Democrats in the Senate have included a provision for same-sex couples in their immigration reform proposal released April 29, which will give them the same immigration rights as straight couples.  The proposed legislation “will eliminate discrimination in the immigration laws by permitting permanent partners of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status," the provision says.

House Democratic leaders on the immigration issue have also pledged to support same-sex couples in their legislation.  This is what Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez told the Chicago Tribune: 

"The underlying part of any comprehensive immigration bill is family unity," he said. "We need to speak more clearly and more articulately and more frequently that the (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, and same-sex couples and their binational relationships, are part of families."

Groups supportive of immigration rights, but against gay and lesbian rights, say that such provisions threaten immigration reform. Here’s a snippet from a press release issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in response to the proposal from Senate democrats:

"We strongly oppose extending marriage-like immigration benefits to same-sex relationships. This proposal threatens to undermine the opportunity to bring together the Congress and the American people around a common solution to the important challenge of immigration reform.”

Meanwhile, Immigration Equality, an organization devoted to winning immigration rights for LGBT couples, applauded the inclusion of same-sex couples in the proposed legislation.

“Our community understands, all too well, the pain of being punished and singled out for who we are," they said in a press release on April 29. "Our solidarity with the larger immigrant community is deep, and our resolve to fix our broken immigration system is real. We will work for a bill that provides a path to citizenship for the undocumented, including those who are LGBT.”

Legislation allowing same-sex couples to sponsor partners for citizenship has been introduced in Congress six times since 2000. Senator Patrick Lehay (D-VT) introduced the latest legislation, the Uniting American Families Act, in February 2009.

What do you think? Should rights for gay couples be included in the immigration legislation?  Or should this issue be addressed in a separate bill?