Uniting American Families Act Re-Introduced Today

Pam Spaulding at The Blend is reporting that the Uniting American Families Act (formerly known as the Permanent Partners Immigration Act) will be re-introduced into Congress Tuesday May 8. The UAFA would allow the same-sex unmarried partners of United States citizens or permanent residents to be sponsored for resident alien status in this country. The main organization in the United States which has been responsible for promoting this bill is Immigration Equality, a group whose Los Angeles chapter I used to be on the board of directors of for nearly half a decade. In those days, larger groups used to look at us like we were crazy if we mentioned that immigration policy was an LGBT rights issue. And this was with a Democratic congressional majority!

Nowadays, both HRC and The Task Force appear to be firmly committed to passing legislation to allow "binational couples" to remain together.

Of course, the United States is behind the curve on this issue; there are nearly 18 countries that have some recognition of same-sex couples for immigration purposes.

UPDATE TUE 05/08/07 1:35PM PDT: Immigration Equality has launched a new blog in conjunction with the reintroduction of UAFA.