Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities

Introduction

introduction Priorto1990gaysandlesbianswerelegallyexcludedfrommigratingtothe United States. The Immigration Act of 1990 effectively ended what was known as “homosexual exclusion.”1 President George H. W. Bush signed the act in the context of an already crucial time for gay, lesbian, and queer people intheUnitedStates.AIDScontinuedtoravagegay,immigrant,poor,andnonwhite communities with little government intervention. Rather than helping, the federal government chose actions like banning migration of HIv-positive people to the United States and debating the viability of quarantining those with HIv/AIDS in camps. The devastation of communities, coupled with the horrific governmental response, prompted a new brand of “queer” activism. Groups like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Queer Nation developed to change the national conversation and save lives. Such groups put what would soon be recognized as an LGBT community in the US public sphere.2 These activists reflected earlier approaches of gay liberationists and radicallesbianfeministsinthelate1960sandearly1970s.Theyusedin-yourface and anti-normative political tactics to engage in acts of civil disobedience such as “die-ins,” where large groups of people would simultaneously fall “dead” in the middle of a public space to call attention to queer lives and deaths. They demanded meetings with politicians, scientists, and pharmaceuticalrepresentativestoinsist ondirectingattentionandresourcestoAIDS and on creating access to health care for all. Although still making demands upon the state, such activists emphasized local and national solutions and reenvisioned questions of identity, belonging, and life. Their activism raged against the conservative politics that championed individualism and narrow definitions of family and that became dominant in the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s. A new professionalization of mainstream gay and lesbian organizing concurrently grew. National nonprofit organizations in existence since 1980 or earlier, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), as well as the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (LLDEF), rose to greater significance in defining a national gay and lesbian political agenda focused on rights and inclusion.3 As Urvashi vaid explains in her book Virtual Equality, leaders in such organizations saw new possibilities for accessing national political power in Washington, DC, especially with the 1992 national election of Bill Clinton, given his seeming friendliness to gay and lesbian causes. For example, almost immediately after his election, Clinton announced that he supported the right of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.4 Many gay and lesbian rights advocates imagined Clinton’s presidency as an opportunity to advance rights in previously unimagined ways, and their agenda was largely separate from that of many of the queer- and AIDS-oriented groups mentioned above. Instead, these organizations constructed an inclusionary agenda designed to bring lesbians and gays into existing laws and structures. This meant focusing on obtainingmarriageandmilitaryrights,passinghatecrimelaws,andsupporting employment nondiscrimination provisions. From within this inclusionary gay and lesbian approach, and after the end of “homosexual exclusion,” in 1993 the LLDEF and the International Lesbian and Gay Association convened in New York City to create the Lesbian and Gay ImmigrationRightsTaskForce(LGIRTF,knownasImmigrationEqualitysince 2004).TheLGIRTFsoughttochallengediscriminatoryimmigrationlawsinthe areas of (1) gay and lesbian US citizens’ and legal permanent residents’ (LPR) ability to sponsor foreign partners; (2) political asylum for gays and lesbians; and(3)migrationrightsforthosewithHIv/AIDS.5 TheLGIRTF,inconjunction withothergroups,perhapsmostnotablytheCoalitiontoLifttheBar,helpedget the ban on HIv-positive migrants removed in 2010 after many years of struggle , which was a significant victory. Working along with other organizations and lawyers, the group was also instrumental in moving the US government to consider sexual orientation and sexual identity as legitimate categories for which one could plead for political asylum.6 According to its early website, a keycomponentoftheLGIRTF’sworkinvolved“collectingpersonalstoriesfrom 2 • introduCtion couples” in order to educate the lesbian and gay community and the “straight” immigrationactivistandadvocacycommunityontheseissues,particularlythe plight of binational same-sex couples; this crystallized as the primary focus of the LGIRTF’s work shortly after the group’s creation. Meanwhile, despite confidencethatClintonwouldbeafriendtogaysandlesbians,histwoprimary gestures toward this constituency were signing into law the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”(DADT)militarypolicyin1993andtheDefenseofMarriageAct(DOMA) in 1996. DOMA defined “marriage” as only between an opposite-sex husband and wife, and “spouse” as only a husband or wife of the opposite sex within the administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now US Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS). Although Clinton saw DOMA as better than its alternative (i.e., a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage), the law effectively codified that which only informally existed: the...