51+ LGBTQ groups back #Not1more to end deportations - 3045 - Gay Lesbian Bi Trans News

Transgender Law Center and Southerners On New Ground, alongside a broad coalition of LGBTQ organizations, have endorsed the #Not1more Deportation campaign and the protests and marches occurring on the April 4th and 5th National Days of Action across the country.

Among the two million immigrants deported by the Obama administration—1,100 people deported every day, and 34,000 people caged in immigration detention centers every single night—are countless LGBTQ individuals and their family, friends, and loved ones. Under the current system of detention and deportation, LGBTQ immigrants, especially transgender women of color, often experience horrific treatment within immigration detention centers, including violence, deprivation of necessary medical care, dehumanization and assaults on basic dignity, psychological torture in solitary confinement, and rape. A recent study demonstrated that transgender women survivors made up 20% of substantiated sexual assault claims in immigration detention.[1] Many detained LGBTQ immigrants simply give up and accept deportation rather than continue to fight for the asylum that they qualify for under existing law because their detention conditions are so unbearable. Too many of our deported community members then end up facing the violence and sometimes murder that they had originally come to the United States to flee. The current immigration detention and deportation crisis harms us deeply, and we call on President Obama to act within his powers to end the cruel and senseless tearing apart of LGBTQ people's communities.

We also call on President Obama to end Secure Communities and other programs which funnel immigrants into the deportation machinery through local law enforcement, particularly those that experience biased policing based on race, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity. Too many of our community members end up in deportation proceedings because they are arrested after calling police for help in a domestic violence situation because the officer made assumptions about what intimate partner violence looks like. Too many transgender women of color are deported because of pretextual arrests for drug possession or sex work leading to criminal charges being immediately dropped and transfer to immigration detention. President Obama has the power to stop these programs so that our non-citizen community members do not live in fear that any minor interaction with police could lead to their deportation.

As those living and working in the intersections of LGBTQ and immigrant identities, we join immigrant activists across the country to say that two million deportations is two million too many and to call on President Obama to act immediately for Not One More Deportation!

Transgender Law Center

Southerners on New Ground

AIDS Legal Referral Panel

Association of Latina/os Motivating Action ( ALMA )

BreakOUT!

Colorado Anti-Violence Program

Community United Against Violence

Domestic Violence Project at the Urban Justice Center

El/La Para TransLatinas

Equality California

Equality New Mexico

Forward Together