Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Gay/Lesbian Family Unity Immigration Bill Reintroduced in the House

Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York reintroduced H.R.519 Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) to promote LGBT family unity immigration, cosponsored by 16 other Representatives including the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

UAFA would allow gay and lesbian Americans to sponsor their permanent partners for legal residency in the United States, a right currently enjoyed only by married heterosexuals under immigration law.  

Because the U.S. does not legally recognize gay and lesbian couples and their children as families, many same-sex bi-national couples are torn apart.  As the push for comprehensive immigration reform increases in Congress, the original co-sponsors asserted that any legislative proposal for immigration reform must include UAFA and equality for LGBT families.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) also plans to introduce UAFA in the Senate. 

Again this bill is intended to get this part of immigration reform in the ongoing Comprehensive Immigration Reform activities in both the Senate and the House. The LGBT community was happy with the Senate immigration reform proposals because LGBT immigrant family unification part was not visibly included. 

This bill appears to be intended to remind the legislative leaders who are working on the CIR to address this component in the final CIR legislative bill. 

For the sponsor's news release, please click here.

Full Text Of The Bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:H.R.519:


Update (Feb 13, 2013):

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont introduced S.296 to permit permanent partners of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status in the same manner as spouses of citizens and lawful permanent residents and to penalize immigration fraud in connection with permanent partnerships.  

Full Text: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:S.296:


Comments posted above will only appear in this blog post. Comments posted below will appear across all blog posts:

comments powered by Disqus