This may be much ado about nothing, but there is something weird going on with the provision (or lack thereof) in Gutierrez's immigration bill. The provision in question is whether same-sex partners of permanent residents can qualify for a visa sponsorship. From Roll Call (subscription required, full text was e-mailed to me):
House proponents of comprehensive immigration reform unveiled an ambitious proposal last week with much fanfare, but lost in the buzz was that their bill isn't entirely comprehensive: They intentionally left out protections for gay and lesbian immigrants.
A bill introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) dealing with family reunification policies for immigrants was completely rolled into the reform package, except for its provisions allowing same-sex partners of permanent residents to qualify for a visa. The decision behind the little-noted change sparked friction between liberals hoping to kick off debate with an all-inclusive bill and Hispanic leaders more focused on keeping religious leaders on board with the plan.
"All the evangelists, Catholics and churches that are part of this were whacking out "over the gay and lesbian provisions," said a Democratic lawmaker familiar with negotiations on the bill.
The lawmaker said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who has led the House effort on comprehensive immigration reform, initially "didn't want to deal with it. At all. "Then he tried to work out a "stupid" compromise whereby the same-sex partner provisions would be in the bill but they wouldn't take effect for five or six years, said this Member.
[...]
The decision was finally made to offer an amendment to the bill when it comes before the Judiciary Committee in February.
Gutierrez denied that he wanted to keep gay and lesbian language out of his bill. "That's just not true," he said, pointing to his long-standing record of supporting the gay community. The real issue, he said, is that same-sex partner matters have not come up in past immigration reform debates and people are still figuring out how to bring the two camps together.
[...]
But other gay lawmakers were not happy about the decision to leave the provision out of the immigration overhaul bill and not as optimistic about it being attached to the measure down the road.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said she was "very frustrated" because she "wanted to see a bill that was comprehensive. But we deal with political reality here." Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who earlier this year pronounced a DOMA repeal "dead" this Congress, predicted it will be a "very, very hard sell" to attach the same-sex provision to the immigration reform bill.
"Don't worry about it. It will happen through the committee process," said Honda, chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. "It's about strategy. It will be done."
Honda is the lead sponsor of the LGBT-friendly Reuniting Families Act, so that is reassuring. Given that this is Gutierrez's own bill and, according to the piece, he signed a letter Baldwin circulated in favor of adding the provision, perhaps the strategy here is to let Congressional Hispanic Caucus members "get comfortable in their shoes" around the provision, as Rep. Ortiz suggests in the piece, and prevent outright Catholic opposition to the bill out of the starting gate. I certainly hope so. It depends on whether by political reality Baldwin means the lack of support in the House or the legislative process. What I am most interested in is whether advocates plan to work this on two tracks, via this bill and via Nadler's Uniting American Families Act, which is aimed at this issue, or try to roll it into the immigration bill.
Steve Ralls, a spokesperson for Immigration Equality, told the LGBT newspaper DC Agenda: "We are extremely disappointed, and we pushed very hard to have our families included, but I do take Congressman Gutierrez at his word that when the issue begins to move early next year that he's going to stand with us... Congressman Gutierrez has been very clear throughout this process that, at the end of the day, when Congress takes up a multi-issue immigration reform bill, that he's going to support our inclusion."
Schumer, who is the lead on the bill in the Senate, hasn't introduced formal text but I will be interested to see where he goes on this, as well.
The other interesting (and potentially volatile) aspect will be whether, down the road, this devolves into another disagreement over whether to advance or delay the bill without the provision or not, reminiscent of the non-inclusive ENDA in 2007. LGBT activists will certainly have less reason to support the bill if it does not have the provision, but LGBT activists like myself are also not single-issue activists, and many like myself want comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible. I hope we do not have to cross that bridge. |
