Senator Gillibrand on LGBT Immigration Reform & Being in a Binational Marriage

By Steve Ralls on 05/18/2011 @ 10:35 AM

In a wide-ranging new interview with reporter Andrew Harmon at The Advocate, United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) talks about the future of LGBT-inclusive immigration reform, as well as her own experiences as the American half of a binational marriage.

Gillibrand - who has been a staunch supporter of LGBT equality - recently joined eleven other Senate colleagues in calling on the Obama Administration to halt the deportation of LGBT spouses.

From her interview with The Advocate:

Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney indicated that the administration does not intend to put a moratorium on deportations involving gay binational couples who are legally married. Yet last month you and 11 senate colleagues wrote a letter to both Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging as much. Are you disappointed?

It’s disappointing. But this is just the beginning of the debate. The more we highlight the effect this has on real lives, on real families, families with children — people will begin to realize that this policy is the wrong policy.

Should the administration know this already?

Immigration reform has been very difficult, for this administration, the previous administration — this is a very volatile issue nationwide. And as a consequence, it may take the administration longer to get this done than I would like, because I really want comprehensive immigration reform, and I want reforms for the ability for spouses and loved ones to sponsor their partners. But that’s the nature of all these political battles. That you have to build your support, you need to make it a broad-based grassroots support, you need to create the intensity that comes with personal stories and the effects on real people — and that is work that we’re going to do over the next six months.

Has the administration responded to the letter that you and your Senate colleagues sent?

I don’t think we’ve had a response yet.

You’re in a binational relationship — your husband [Jonathan Gillibrand] is from the U.K. How has your marriage influenced your perspective in this issue?

When we got engaged, when we got married, we couldn’t go outside the country to have a honeymoon because Jonathan’s status was pending. We had to be very careful about our travel. It must be an awful feeling for any loving couple to have to worry that your spouse or your loved one is going to be deported at any moment. I can’t think of a more awful, destabilizing, unfair policy. At all. And so we have to do better. And we have to protect these marriages, and these partnerships. Because these are loving couples, and they may well have children, and we should protect those children.

To read Senator Gillibrand's full interview with Harmon, click here.

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