Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Organizations “Come Out” Against ICE’s “Secure Communities” Deportation Program

LGBTQ Immigrants At Risk of Deportation, Violence as a Result of Police/ICE Collaboration

CONTACT:
Morgan Bassichis, CUAV (415) 777-5500 ext. 318
Andrea Ritchie, Streetwise & Safe (646) 831-1234

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizations across the country are adding their voices to the growing national movement to end ICE’s controversial fingerprint-sharing “Secure Communities” (S-Comm) program. By forcing local law enforcement to share fingerprint data for every person arrested – no matter how valid or minor the charge – with federal immigration authorities, S-Comm has contributed to skyrocketing numbers of detentions and deportations.

Prompted by ICE’s unilateral move to make the highly debated program mandatory, national, regional, and local LGBTQ organizations–including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP)–felt compelled to mark National Coming Out Day by adding their voices to the national upsurge of opposition to S-Comm today.

“NCAVP is concerned by the impact of police/ICE collaboration on LGBTQ survivors of violence. It is not uncommon for LGBTQ survivors of violence to be arrested when they call police for help.  NCAVP member programs know that many LGBTQ survivors do not access police for safety when they experience violence, and the Secure Communities program may increase fear, barriers to safety, and risk of detention and deportation for LGBTQ immigrant communities,” said Chai Jindasurat, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Coordinator at the New York City Anti-Violence Project.  “In honor of this year’s National Coming Out Day, NCAVP calls for an end to a program that has severe consequences for LGBTQ people.”

In a statement released on National Coming Out Day, over sixty LGBTQ groups call on President Obama to take immediate action to eliminate this destructive program. California Assemblymember and longtime LGBTQ rights activist Tom Ammiano echoed this call: “Every day LGBTQ Californians are being unfairly deported leading to tragic consequences for communities both here and across the country.  I am urging the Obama Administration to end the deception around S-Comm and suspend this damaging program.”

“The LGBTQ movement has often been an example of how to hold your head high with pride in the face of discrimination. As migrants, we’re inspired by National Coming Out Day and strengthened by this show of solidarity,” said Sarahi Uribe, Organizer of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

“We hear regular reports of LGBTQ people who find themselves in deportation proceedings after being profiled by their race, class, sexuality, and gender as they go about their daily lives or even as they navigate domestic violence,” said Morgan Bassichis of the San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the country’s oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization. “Rather than making anyone more ‘secure’, S-Comm endangers all communities by tearing at the fabric of family and support networks and creating a culture of fear.”

The statement marks a historic confluence of movements for LGBTQ rights and migrant rights, and increased attention to migrant issues within LGBTQ communities. “On this National Coming Out Day, we recognize that LGBTQ immigrants need more than acceptance from family, schools, and neighbors to be “out”: they need to be free from profiling, detention, and deportation,” said Mónica Enriquez-Enriquez of Streetwise and Safe, an organization working with LGBTQ youth of color in New York City and signatory to the statement.

Statement

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Organizations Call for the Immediate Elimination of ICE’s “Secure Communities” Program

On August 5, 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton informed governors that ICE would terminate all agreements with states to implement its controversial fingerprint-sharing “Secure Communities” (S-Comm) program, despite previously saying that states and counties could opt-out or modify that agreement. This announcement came as a result of powerful community mobilization throughout the country to challenge S-Comm and expose the harmful consequences of police/ICE collaboration.

LGBTQ immigrants–particularly LGBTQ youth of color, low-income LGBTQ people, and LGBTQ survivors of violence–are disproportionately impacted by S-Comm and all “ICE ACCESS” programs, a set of thirteen federal programs that create partnership between federal law enforcement and local, state, and tribal police and courts.

Because of widespread police profiling, selective enforcement, and poverty, LGBTQ immigrants come into high rates of contact with law enforcement, leading to a greater risk for deportation, now made even greater by programs such as S-Comm. Unfortunately, these programs are only the first steps in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) biometric-sharing “Next Generation Identification” (NGI), a massive searchable database of palm print, fingerprint, and iris scans as well as scar, mark, tattoo, and facial recognition that will be accessible across federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.

As LGBTQ leaders, activists, and community members, we call on President Obama to take decisive action to eliminate these destructive programs that target and have severe consequences for LGBTQ people, low-income people, immigrants, people of color, survivors of violence, and young people.

How S-Comm Harms LGBTQ Communities:

• Police/ICE collaboration further endangers LGBTQ communities and all communities with less access to resources. All immigrants in this country struggle to find safe and secure housing, healthcare, employment, and education while living in fear of deportation. Immigrants who are LGBTQ are particularly vulnerable to detention and deportation because they are more likely to come into contact with law enforcement through police profiling and discriminatory enforcement of minor offenses, as well as through false or dual arrest when they attempt to survive or flee violence. Officials often use excessive force and coercion against LGBTQ people at the scene of arrest, including threats of deportation. Once in jail, prison, or immigration detention, LGBTQ people experience rampant and sometimes fatal sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, mirroring the abuse many face from partners, employers, and neighbors outside.

• Police/ICE collaboration programs scapegoat LGBTQ immigrant communities and all marginalized groups of people by labeling them as “criminals.” LGBTQ communities like all marginalized communities face higher rates of poverty, violence, and unemployment. By labeling these communities “criminals,” S-Comm and other similar programs undermine the ability of communities and policymakers to create long-term solutions to these critical issues.

• Deporting and increasing surveillance of people does not create safety. Removing people from their homes and communities breaks apart biological and chosen family, drains resources, and creates a culture of fear. In addition to anticipating anti-LGBTQ bias, the fear of being referred to ICE can discourage LGBTQ immigrants from accessing supportive services. Many LGBTQ people face strained relationships with their biological families, and depend on others in their community for support. S-Comm and other similar programs tear at the fabric of these life-saving networks. True safety comes from whole, fully-resourced communities where everyone has the support they need to thrive.

A lawyer by training, Paula was a longtime part of the Astraea family who dedicated her life to LGBTI human rights and racial and economic justice. Most recently, she consulted with Astraea’s international grants program before taking the helm of the Stonewall Foundation last year.

Paula’s impact stretches across more than a quarter century. She contributed strategic thinking, tenacity and wisdom to the field through her work with numerous colleague organizations. Among them are the Empire State Pride Agenda, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC). She impacted countless students as a professor of law.

Paula’s sharp eye and constant commitment to the freedom of all LGBTI people never wavered, nor did she confine her efforts to the borders of the U.S. She was a key figure in supporting the work of activists the world over, including Uganda, bringing much needed attention to human rights violations and advocating for change.

We send our deepest condolences to her loved ones and to all touched by her light.

On receiving the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Fiction, Francesca Austin Ochoa said, “”The last, and only, writing award that I received was from a contest held at my Catholic grade school. I was twelve years old and I remember having my name called from the pulpit and awkwardly making my way up the church aisle to claim a $25 check and a card signed by the presiding reverend.  It is an absolute honor to be recognized by the Astraea Foundation many years later and for much more genuine convictions.””

Today, her convictions include the idea that, “Both art and social justice can be expressions of how we see, and how we wish to see the world. It is about contributing to the library of human thought and imagination in a way that recomposes truth and reinterprets dreams.”

Francesca plans to use the award towards her MFA in fiction at Columbia University. [read her work]

Lori Swartz, based in Santa Fe, is somewhat of a renaissance woman who performs burlesque and trapeze, makes films, writes and works metal in her art studio. She said that the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry was “a validation of all my years of solitary writing.”

To Lori, making art is an essential part of social justice. “As lesbian or queer writers, there are so many barriers to writing down our stories. There is the struggle of coming out, accepting our histories and then having the guts to put it on paper. Putting our experiences in writing lends them credibility.”

Lori plans to use the award to fund a month-long writing sabbatical in an as yet undetermined city. “It’s important that this gift contributes to my writing, travel and freedom,” she said. Lori recently made a documentary on the challenges artists face in marketing their work and is currently writing her first novel. [read her work]

A prestigious panel of writers determined the awards: Fiction panelists were Ana-Maurine Lara and R. Erica Doyle. Poetry panelists were Chrystos and Nikky Finney.

Also recognized for their work were Finalists in Fiction Sheree L. Greer and Chinelo Okparanta; Finalists in Poetry Donna M. Lane and Lauren Peterson; Honorable Mentions in Fiction M.J. Corey, Sassafras Lowrey, and Jenie Pak; and Honorable Mentions in Poetry Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers, Nicole Santalucia, and Kirya Traber.

A portion of these awards was made possible by Skip’s Sappho Fund at Astraea. Each year, awards are made from the Lesbian Writers Fund and the Lesbian Visual Arts Fund to artists located west of the Mississippi in posthumous honor of Skip Neal, a lesbian artist and Astraea supporter.

To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Lesbian Writers Fund, Astraea is hosting Writeous! Celebrating 20 Years of the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund in New York City. Join us on November 11th, 2011.

As the discussion over gay rights continues, so, too, does the debate as to whether the gay rights issue is a civil rights issue, namely one that some say is reflective of the black civil rights movement. In the upcoming film, The New Black, filmmaker Yoruba Richen explores the histories of the African American and LGBT civil rights movements. “The film specifically looks at homophobia in the Black church, and how the Christian right has exploited this phenomenon that exists in order to promote an anti-gay political agenda,” says Richen. Her project is demonstrative of how the parallels and distinctions between the African American and gay rights movements are complex and multi-layered.

“
As both of these movements have reached maturation we have multiple generations working for civil rights,” says J. Bob Alotta, executive director of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. “Right now you would be talking about grandchildren and children of civil rights activists. Our elders were Black Panthers and marching with [Martin Luther King Jr]. Not only have we learned from them, but when we start talking about identity politics it’s apparent that many of us embody multiple identities.”

Read the rest of the article on Black Enterprise.

Community is one of the hallmarks of Astraea. From the 1970s to today, Astraea has remained dedicated to nurturing the communities we care so deeply about, in New York and worldwide.

We know that the best kind of power is collective. In that spirit, sign up to learn more about Astraea and be invited to our next event!

Astraea published an op-ed in The Progressive: “When the lesbian blogger Amina Arraf in Syria was revealed to be a white American man named Tom MacMaster, it fueled the myth that Arab lesbians don’t exist. They do. And the anonymity of the Internet does create one of the few spaces that lesbian Arabs can come out and find each other…”
Read the rest of the op-ed on The Progessive.

Summer 2011 eThreads just released! Read Astraea’s take on funding sex worker organizing as part of achieving gender justice. Hear about our 2011 International Fund grantees and their work to end hate violence to seize political moments. Find out how flexible funding has allowed a New York grantee to innovate, and meet two donor partners who have launched a new giving circle. Plus, Astraea travels the globe for LGBTI human rights.

Read eThreads here: www.ethreads.org