Many countries are hostile to homosexuality. Countless gay people live under governments and religions that demonize and criminalize same-sex behavior. It comes as no surprise that many les-bi-gay people attempt, fail or succeed to live in other countries hoping to escape danger and persecution. Immigration to a safe country can be a matter of life or death.
On this page are referrals to immigration resources and personnel.

• National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities
• Gay and Lesbian Arabs
• African Asylum Seekers
• Latin American Human Rights

• Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
• National Center for Lesbian Rights

• Health for Asylum Seekers (UK)
• UK Lesbian and Gay Immigration Group

• Asylum Law.org
• LGBT Asylum News
• LGBT Immigration Help in USA
• LGBT Immigration Help in Canada
• Immigration in Canada (news story)

• Immigration Equality
• Asylum On-Library (see article #8)
• 2006 Immigration Film ‘Maple Palm’

• A report released on May 2, 2006 by Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality entitled:
Family Unvalued: Discrimination, Denial, and the Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law.
Nearly 200 pages, it is available online at Immigration Equality and Human Rights Watch,
and documents a broad range of cases, including gay couples.

• ORAM – Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration has released its newest publication, Rainbow Bridges: A Community Guide to Rebuilding the Lives of LGBTI Refugees and Asylum Seekers. Rainbow Bridges. It is the first guide of its kind directed at US LGBT and accepting communities. A 48-page guide developed in a pilot project to resettle LGBT refugees in San Francisco, Rainbow Bridges offers practical step-by-step guidance on welcoming new refugees, ensuring their mental and physical well-being, and helping them find support in their new communities. It includes sample forms, a suggested code of conduct, and outlines the avenues for refugees to receive housing, employment, and federal assistance. It also contains vibrant LGBTI-themes paintings by San Francisco gay artist Marconi Calindas.
Rainbow Bridges is available online (Download report PDF).

• Independent Gay Forum–Commentary
• Human Rights Watch
• Columbia University Law school: Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic
• Immigration and Equality–commentary

• List of Immigration Lawyers from ‘Find Stuff’

• Astrea Lesbian Foundation for Justice

• Also see: Gay Canada News reports #4, 4a, and 5 about Canadian asylum

• News report from Pink News (Sept 17/07): Iraqi Gays Win Asylum in UK
• News report from Windy City Times (Dec 19/07): Global Gays Initiative
• News Report from Canada.com (March 15/08): Proving Gayness Not Always Easy
• News Report from Canada.com (June 27/08): Politics and Showbiz Support Gay Asylum Seekers
• News Report from Chicago Tribune 2010: Growing Number of LGBT Win asylum in USA

• Gay Asylum UK   Gay asylum is a voluntary organisation that receives no public funding and has its own independent views. “Our aim is to assist and help gay asylum seekers in the UK, despite their country of origin or current legal status. However our special interest and expertise is in the persecution, torture and execution of homosexuals in and by the Islamic republic of Iran”
E-mail contact

• Report on prejudice against LGBT refugees

• Using the Internet to ‘prove’ a person is gay:
Facebook may help prove gay refugee’s claims says Canadian group

• Gay Latinos continue to seek political asylum in the United States

• Beware of Immigration and Asylum Fraud: Read This

• Increase in Gay Asylum in USA

• Interview: Neil Grungras, founder of ORAM

• Immigration Stories This site gives the LGBT community a chance to share their stories related to immigration and putting them together to create a collective wisdom

• Jamaica’s gays finding refuge by applying for U.S. asylum

• Canada Rainbow Refugee Committee

• USA Immigration story
Gays Seeking Asylum in U.S. Encounter a New Hurdle
followed by this response

• U.S. Immigration Officials Put Hold on Gay Spouse Cases: no longer automatically rejecting green card applications from the foreign spouses of gay and lesbian citizens
• Gay Refugee Rights: Legislation and Human Rights Law: The legal shifts to recognize homosexuality as the basis for a claim of refugee protection are emerging in response to some states that are criminalizing or re-criminalizing homosexuality.

• Advocates like Neil Grungras are vital as accounts increasingly emerge of persecution and violence towards refugees and asylum-seekers in parts of the world based on sexual grounds.

• Paper: You are not gay enough; Proving sexual orientation and gender identity within the asylum regime; the credibility challenge In varying cultural expressions of sex and gender

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