Asylum and Its Discontents in the United States
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) posits that the number of gay and lesbian people receiving asylum in the United States based on their sexual orientation has surged in recent years and that most such people come from countries in Central America where homosexuality is not criminalized (as opposed to places like … Read more
In his native Russia, artist and filmmaker Alexander Kargaltsev was beaten by police at a gay pride event and detained after he left a gay club. He came to the U.S. in 2010 and received asylum in 2011. Last week, Mr. Kargaltsev held his first solo exhibit at a new gallery, called 287 Spring, in downtown … Read more
I recently met a gay man from Africa who has lived in the United States with his U.S.-citizen partner for many years. The two men started a successful business and are pillars of their community. But because they are a same-sex couple, the U.S. citizen cannot sponsor his partner for lawful permanent residence in the … Read more
USCIS and Immigration Equality have joined forces to create a new training module for asylum adjudicators called “Guidance for Adjudicating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Refugee and Asylum Claims.” According to Immigration Equality, the new module “instructs asylum officers on substantive aspects of the law and highlights the unique difficulties that LGBTI claimants … Read more
According to a report from Pink News, Europe’s Largest Gay News Service, the Czech Republic uses a test to determine whether asylum seekers are really gay. The test involves a cleverly-named device known as a “phallometer,” which measures arousal. The theory is that if a man (the test only works for people with phalluses) who claims to be gay becomes … Read more
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that an Immigration Judge improperly relied on gay stereotypes to reach an adverse credibility determination. See Todorovic v. Attorney General, Case No. 09-11652 (11th Cir. Sept. 27, 2010). Mladen Todorovic is a gay man from Serbian who came to the United States in … Read more
Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has applied for political asylum in the United States, claiming that Saudi officials have terminated his job after discovering that he was gay and was close friends with an Israeli Jewish woman. MSNBC reports that on a Saudi website, Mr. Asseri recently criticized … Read more