Oral History: LGBTQ New Americans

Click on this link for other interviews with LGBT immigrants to New York on YouTube.

Sir Cliff: Happy 75th!

The Express are presumably too gormless to realise the irony in the pic of Cliff being of an immigrant in a limo.

He was born 75 years ago in Lucknow, India.

Oh, and he's also a great big...

Theresa May: 'And I Am Not Making This Up...'

It's hard to know where to start with Theresa May's awful, ugly, misleading, cynical and irresponsible speech to the Conservative Party conference today.

If you haven't seen reports of it, allow me to summarise: "Immigrants are stealing your job, making you poorer and ruining your country. Never mind the facts, just feel angry at foreigners. And make me Conservative leader."

This line deserves close attention: 'And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.'
 
Really? We know that, do we?

Because last year, Mrs May's own officials carried out a pretty serious review of the evidence.

This is what they found: There is relatively little evidence that migration has caused statistically significant displacement of UK natives from the labour market in periods when the economy is strong...

James Kirkup, writing for that notorious left-wing paper The Daily Telegraph.

Here's a Guardian factcheck of her various claims today.

She was also criticised by the Institute of Directors' Simon Walker; 'We are astonished by the irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment from the Home Secretary... The myth of the job-stealing-immigrant is nonsense. Immigrants do not steal jobs, they help fill vital skill shortages and, in doing so, create demand and more jobs.' 

The Refugree Council added; 'The home secretary’s clear intention to close Britain’s border to refugees fleeing for their lives is thoroughly chilling, as is her bitter attack on the fundamental principle enshrined in international law that people fleeing persecution should be able to claim asylum in Britain.' 

Many pointed out the cruel irony that May's best-known intervention at Conservative conference before was telling delegates in 2002; 'There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies. You know what some people call us – the Nasty Party.'

A seismic moment that led to Cameron's 'let's say nice things about minorities and give the buggers gay marriage' volte face. 

Camilo and Frank and their cat, Maya.

In 2011, the same year Cameron came out in support of gay marriage, Theresa May famously warned conference about immigration and asylum; 'We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat.'

Except it was soon shown that that story was made up.

The decision to let Bolivian Camilo Renzo Soria stay in the UK with his partner Frank Trew had nothing to do with their cat.

Surely everything Ms May says to conference should be prefixed with the warning; 'And I am not making this up'?

ie She probably is. 

PS Will we start sending back LGBT people we've granted asylum to? Standard. 

Mail Online: A Rare Moment Of Candour

Mail Online.

Oops! I appear to have accidentally cropped this headline a little too short.

The story is about a new MORI poll where people vastly overestimated the numbers of the unemployed, teenage pregnancies, Muslims and immigrants in the UK.

Can't imagine where people get these funny ideas from...

Migrant Watch: At Last! UK Gets Tough

BBC News front page.

You couldn't make it up etc etc.

President Obama: The Motorcade Sped On

NEW YORK, NY — Today outside Gotham Hall, where the Democratic National Committee’s LGBT Leadership Committee held one of its largest fundraising events of the year, LGBTQ and immigrant rights groups GetEQUAL, Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, a project of United We Dream, Immigration Equality, and Make the Road New York risked arrest in order to call on President Obama and the Democratic Party to stop deportations and grant administrative relief to undocumented immigrants in the United States. President Obama was on-site as the keynote speaker. Though the protesters blocked the street in front of the fundraiser as the motorcade passed by, the New York Police Department refused to arrest them.

Barack Obama’s administration is responsible for over two million deportations — more than any other administration in U.S. history. Many of those deportations have been LGBTQ immigrants, who face extraordinary discrimination within the detention system and who are often deported to countries in which they face harassment, abuse, violence and sometimes, death due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Just yesterday, the day before this fundraiser, the Obama Administration announced plans to sign an executive order barring discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. While this news is welcomed, it will not impact the estimated 267,000 undocumented LGBTQ immigrants who live in the shadows each day for fear of deportation under President Obama’s administration.

Each year, LGBTQ donors contribute millions of dollars to the Democratic National Committee, and are sold a bill of goods that they are helping to elect pro-LGBTQ leaders. Many strides have been made in the past six years, including yesterday’s announcement about the federal contractor executive order, yet there is still much that the Obama administration can do to ensure that LGBTQ individuals — including LGBTQ immigrants — have legal protections...

GetEQUAL.

• In Their Own Words: A national survey of undocumented millennials. See also Why LGBTQ Deportations Still = Death Felipe Sousa-Rodriguez. 

Blame: Them!

Little bit of politics there...

Immigration: Us V Them

While they wait, some for up to 16 years, asylum seekers languish in housing condemned by the committee as, in some cases, "appalling". Not just a shambles, degrading also. The committee was rightly outraged by testimony from gay and lesbian asylum seekers, some of whom were required to go to extraordinary lengths to establish sexuality. Having exhausted all reasonable ways of making a case, a few resorted to handing over photographic and video evidence of "highly personal sexual activity". Is this a system we can be proud of? The anti-war slogan comes to mind: not in my name...

Hugh Muir in The Guardian, after the Tories announced they were "getting tough" on immigration and asylum, yet again.

Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to 'detect' gay people and stop them from entering the country

Daily Mail, October 7th.

The Mail story was widely reported as above (their own has since been updated).

It is a gross distortion.

As Scott Long has reported, no-one in Kuwait - or Qatar - has proposed some new "gay test" for tourists.

Rather; "The Kuwait Ministry of Health has proposed tightening genetic tests for immigrant workers in order to prevent transgender migrants from entering the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] job market."

The "gay test" fiction was reported in the international LGBT media and elsewhere.

Please let Fagburn know of any you see who have published a correction or an update on the story, ie one that is actually accurate.

At the time of typing, despite polite requests from many individuals, I know of none.

[Edit: Towleroad gave the earliest and most transparent correction I saw. More usually, where the real story was printed, they were mendacious, and the fact that they had published a garbled version before disappeared down an Orwellian Memory Hole].

Thanks to @undersided

Catflap: Never Mind The Pussy...

The officially unreported judgment which emerged on Thursday reveals the unnamed student, aged 33, had been living in a "strong relationship" for four years with his gay partner who is settled in Britain...

The immigration ruling makes clear the judge considered the dying father of the Bolivian student's partner far more important than their joint ownership of Maya the cat in deciding the case.

The senior immigration judge, JR Devittie, regarded evidence from friends and the partner's brothers as to the quality of relationship as "persuasive and telling".

The original ruling shows that the student overstayed his visa and was issued with a removal notice after being arrested for shoplifting. He was not charged with the offence. The detailed ruling shows the evidence about the cat was only introduced by a witness.

While sources close to May have stressed this reference to the cat, they have not quoted the judge's conclusion that the evidence from friends, relatives and photographs of family occasions had "amply demonstrated" the quality and strength of their relationship. "The evidence shows the appellant is well integrated into the larger family his partner has with his siblings and parents. He attends family functions with his partner and is regarded as a member of the family."

He also rejected the Home Office's contention that they could both simply go and live in Bolivia, pointing out that would not be reasonable given that his partner's father was 'in a condition that he was not expected to recover from' and the family, including the Bolivian student had collectively decided to support him.

The Home Office appealed Devittie's decision claiming it had placed "an inappropriate weight on the Bolivian student having to leave behind not only his partner but also his joint cat." The appeal judge, senior immigration judge Gleeson, does not seem to have taken this seriously and says that the Home Office claim that Devittie had made a mistake in law by applying a policy that had already been withdrawn was more significant.

When the case was heard on 1 December 2008 Gleeson dismissed the appeal saying the immigration authorities had overlooked their own procedures for dealing with unmarried partners of a person present or settled in the UK.

From The Guardian - based on a statement by the judicial communications office "issued with the full authority of the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, which said the Home Office was wrong."

The man - named elsewhere as Ranzo Avila, now 36 - had argued his right to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because he had been with his boyfriend for four years.

The race is now on to see if it's The Sun, The Daily Express or The Daily Mail who will be the first to notice that the Bolivian cat lover who wasn't deported is - and I'm not making this up - a gay!

If only Conservative Party conference had heard that bit.
Send 'im back!!!!

According to the Daily Telegraph: "Mr Avila is still with his partner and is eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain in Britain when his current leave comes up for renewal next year. If granted it paves the way for him to apply for British citizenship."

• Here's the 2009 Daily Telegraph piece that started Cat-gate; 'Immigrant allowed to stay because of pet cat'
The DT presumed that the anonymous man was heterosexual; "An immigrant who was about to be deported from Britain has won a legal battle to remain in the country – partly because he and his girlfriend had bought a pet cat."

Phil Woolas: The Last Goodbye

The political career of Phil Woolas is over.
Finito. Dead.
Excellent news.
The High Court today upheld the decision to strip Woolas, Labour's former Immigration Minister, of his seat in the House of Commons.
Woolas narrowly won the Oldham East and Saddleworth seat in May, but the result was declared void by a special election court that ruled he'd lied about the Lib Dem candidate.
He was found guilty of making "false statements" - ie lying - in election literature which pandered to racists for electoral gain.
Woolas also produced literature that accused the unmarried Lib Dem, Elwyn Watkins, candidate of lying about living in the constituency and insinuating he was gay.
Watkins was described as "a single man who lives alone with his mother".
And lest we forget, as New Labour's Immigration Minister one could argue that his last job also involved pandering to racists for electoral gain.
He was also a hate figure for LGBT campaigners.
Fagburn is glad to see the back of the man who oversaw the shameful Immigration Office policy that lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people seeking asylum could return to their countries if they were "discreet".
The Sun once devoted an editorial to singing his praises;
"Phil Woolas speaks more sense on immigration than every minister combined in 11 years of this Government... [he] attacks his own Government for failing to check numbers in and out and making it too easy for illegals to stay."
It says much that Woolas used it in his election literature.

Phil Woolas MP: Good Riddance

So farewell then Phil Woolas MP.
"His 2010 election win was declared void and he was suspended by the Labour party.
"Mr Woolas faces a three-year parliamentary ban after being found guilty of deliberately making false statements about a Lib Dem rival in campaign literature," BBC News reports.
He made "false statements" - ie lies - which pandered to racists for electoral gain.
Woolas was New Labour's Minister for Immigration - so one could argue that his last job also involved pandering to racists for electoral gain.
Woolas also produced election pamphlets accusing the unmarried Lib Dem, Elwyn Watkins, candidate of lying about living in the constituency and making insinuations about his sexuality. Watkins was described as "a single man who lives alone with his mother".
Woolas oversaw the disgusting and indefensible policy that lesbian, gay and trans people seeking asylum in the UK could return to their countries if they were "discreet".
He is a scum egg.
As Woolas returns to life amongst his former constituents in Oldham East and Saddleworth, Fagburn hopes he will be discreet.
And then drop dead.

"Gay Vicar Weds Nigerian Toyboy": Readers Explode Across Middle England

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.
Of course they do, that's why it said so in that song.
And for the tabloids there are a few other things that are just made to go together.
Like the words "toy" and "boy", and "gay" and "vicar".
Well today the gods must have been smiling, as many papers were able to get all four words into a single headline.
As did - but of course - The Sun; 'Gay Vicar Weds Nigerian Toyboy'.
Bingo! Cue mass outbreak of Little Britain-style Tory Ladies vomiting across Middle England.
And - oh hallelujah - it also touches on two other tabloid obsessions; gay marriage, and there's a hint of "immigration scam".
And - praise be - in tabloid terms this is no ordinary "odd couple", they're not just the same sex, they're from different races and continents and - oh heaven forfend - different generations.
Or as The Daily Mail worded it; 'Gay vicar, 65, to 'marry' Nigerian male model half his age.' (Fagburn can't remember anyone being described as a "male model" since the Jeremy Thorpe trial...)
Good job too - as beyond ticking just about every box that's bound to make a bigot explode, this is more over-the-garden-wall gossip, than a news story.
Rev Colin Coward ("bearded... 65") and Bobby Egbele ("25... a model") aren't actually getting married - they can't.
They're having a civil partnership, but not in Colin's church - they can't do that either.
But they are having a "blessing-type service" in the church afterwards.
And Colin's not saying if the relationship is celibate - cause gay vicars can't do that either.
And if you read the small print in some papers he's not even a practising vicar anymore.
Confusing isn't it?
The Mirror missed the immigration angle, but - predictably - The Express didn't, though surprisingly they didn't milk it; "Bobby, a Nigerian citizen, is in the UK on a holiday visa. The couple are awaiting permission for him to remain in the country from the UK Borders Agency. This is expected to be a formality but the marriage – which means Bobby would become a UK citizen – cannot go ahead until permission is granted."
Fagburn has only seen one media source come right out and say... well; "Of course we all know it's just a sham ceremony so Bobby can get his citizenship papers. You know how those homosexuals are always exploiting marriage laws for immigration purposes."
That was Queerty - and I trust they were being ironic.
The Sun says Colin and Bobby's holy/unholy union has "stunned his flock".
But the only other person they have quoted is the in-no-way barking mad Stephen Green of Christian Voice.
Mr Green thinks the idea is "an abomination before God."
He told The Sun; ""Mr Coward is an emotionally disturbed man trying to inflict his predilections on the rest of the church. I fail to recognise him as a Christian."
Funny. A lot of people say the same thing about Stephen Green.

Bigoted woman in "bigoted woman" shock

More shocking news!! Labour's election campaign now looks in tatters after Gordon Brown called a woman who kept going on about immigration and sounded a bit bigoted a "bigoted woman".
When the 65 year-old pensioner asked him; "All these Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?", Brown failed to give the decent answer; "That'll be Eastern Europe."
This incident could be every bit as catastrophic for Labour as that time when John Prescott punched some munter with a mullet who'd just thrown an egg in his face, and literally several voters thought; "Actually, I'm quite glad he did that."
It's only disappointing that Brown wasn't overheard calling her something really insulting.
Like "Silly old cunt" for example.
Or had punched her repeatedly in the face with a dumbbell whilst chanting; "Die! Die! Die!"