Beyond Equality Marches! Notes from a Brown, Queer Immigrant.

I sit next to my attorney silently, facing the immigration judge. I am told my case (aka my life, aspirations and my body) is under his jurisdiction. I am dressed as professionally as possible to aptly represent my "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" status. I nervously look around the room. My dark eyes catch another attorney behind us signaling me to take off my hat. Promptly I take off my favorite accessory (my only sign of faggotry) to show my compliance with the US judicial practices. The judge begins his inquiry, to which my attorney reveals my HIV status, and my inability to adjust my status even though my petition for permanent residency to the US was granted on the basis of my claim as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability" in February 2002.

The pain of hiding underground, days of unemployment, hunger, fear of accessing treatment leading me to near death flashes across my mind. Where would I turn for the wasted seven years of my life? Will this judge be able to understand the lost wages, aspirations, depression and most of all the psychological violence of being separated from my beloved parents? It is clear my journey to justice is only beginning.

This blog post is my first public step in ending isolation, silence, fear and their antecedent dysfunctions that the HIV ban on immigration and travel has wrought upon my life. It has disrupted my educational, work and all major life aspirations. I have silently watched my friends getting married, accessing green card, completing their PhD's and accumulating life assets. I have very vocally over the last six years worked with LGBT immigrants, helped them with their asylum claims, and watch them move on with their lives. Whereas, I have had to hide in fear, live on friends couches, clean apartments, meticulously plan my travels within the US, face Kaposi Sarcoma, PCP (all very avoidable if medications are accessed on time). Publicly my body is mapped as that of an Immigration and Education Policy Expert, whereas privately I have been intimately aware that any inkling of my health status would have me labeled "diseased, public burden". Yet I know that my life and story is not the only one, there are several HIV positive immigrants silently waiting for some form of relief, as they continue to work hard, and pay taxes.

The United States has denied the entry of HIV+ people for both short term travel and immigration since 1987. This exclusionary practice follows a long history of excluding immigrants into the United States on public health grounds. Since the 1890’s the US Congress empowered the federal government to turn back those with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. The rational for such exclusions ostensibly being two folds; i) protecting the public health of US citizenry and ii) Reducing the burden on health care expenses of the US government. The intersections of racism, xenophobia and public health becomes evident when these bans are contextualized within the demographic profiles of generations of incoming immigrants and those who are excluded.

In the early 1990’s during the Haitian Refugee crisis, all Haitian detainees at Guantanamo were forcibly tested for HIV, and those found positive were detained in Guantanamo under un-hygienic conditions. The Haitian Centers Council successfully fought a case for the release of the terminally ill detainees. The entire situation created a renewed fear of “diseased foreigners”, and prompted Congress to consider legislation that legally deemed HIV+ persons as “inadmissible”. Review of the congressional hearing proceedings reveals deployment of xenophobic, HIV phobic and homophobic remarks by those in support of the ban. A large coalition of medical, legal and LGBT rights organizations opposed the ban, but in wake of virulent AIDS phobia and stigma of the early 1990’s, and fear of a flurry of HIV+ immigrants driving up health care costs in the US, the ban was adopted. The ban has disproportionately impacted immigrants of color, since majority of recent immigrants to the US are from Latin America, Caribbeans, Asia and Africa. It can also be argued that the ban like other bans in the past is deeply rooted in scientific racism, xenophobia and homophobia.

Efforts to remove the HIV ban have largely been organized by HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and some immigrant rights organizations. In 1990, several medical, Gay and Lesbian and Immigrant organizations such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the American Medical Association lobbied the Health and Human Services (HHS) to remove HIV from its list of inadmissible diseases. As the HHS was preparing recommendations, the then Republican dominated Congress pushed through a bill that eventually made it a law to ban HIV+ individuals from entering the country. Since then, extensive on the ground organizing has been conducted by grass-roots immigrant organizations, who worked to push policy organizations to bring the removal of the ban back as an agenda item, to their work. In May of 2006 the “Lift the Bar Coalition” was formed, lead by Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queers for Economic Justice, The Audre Lorde Project, Immigration Equality, HIV/AIDS organizations such as African AIDS Services and AIDS Action along with immigrant rights organizations such as the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the New Voices fellow I was one of the lead community organizers around the initiatives to "Lift the Ban”. I recall organizing community forums, strategizig with coalition members, while every cell in my body wanted to announce loudly my own health status, and the ways I have had to hide in fear.

On July 2008, after years of significant on the ground organizing, and lobbying “Lift the Bar Coalition” was successful in removing the HIV ban language from the “Immigration and Nationality Act”. The coalition met with offices of Senator John Kerry and Representative Barbara Lee to tag the removal of the ban along with the “President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR).HIV still remains on the list “inadmissible diseases” with the HHS. The HHS has recently released renewed guidelines indicating a possible laxer standard, we are yet to see these being finalized.

As I continue to wait to adjust my status, I have begun my own journey to health and justice. Justice for me would be the very undoing of stigma in legal and societal practices for people living with HIV and AIDS, people from disability communities, and many other folks who are labeled diseased and marginalized. On the eve of the National Equality March, I challenge all of us to go beyond notions of equality under the law, and invite us to re imagine the basic foundation of our LGBT movement as "transformative justice". While cost-benefit analysis along with equality as a rhetoric helped us push the lifting of the HIV Ban with lawmakers on H street, the struggle is yet to be over. Justice will be served to me when I can visit my beloved parents after being separated from them for 13years. I will see justice when every immigrant is imagined as a human being with dreams, aspirations and emotions. Justice will shine when all LGBT people will be able to live life free of shame and fear, and for each of these to happen we need to go beyond our focus on public policies, we need to expand our work to incorporate strategies that fundamentally alter power relations in society.

As I get ready to hit the "publish" button on my laptop, I fear of what may come from being public through this blog while my case is still pending. At the same time I am letting go of pain, fear and silence that almost drove me to near death. Finally, I have to admit I am planning on "getting on the bus" for National Equality March, however mine is a bus for justice, peace, redistribution of economic resources, labor and human rights, all intrinsically related to the liberation of LGBT people. Find me marching with friends and long time allies at the National Gay Lesbian Taskforce . The Taskforce over the years has shown me they are reflexive about their mistakes, build on victories and have historically fought for policy changes along with building a movement for social justice. Whom ever you march with, party with or end up hooking up with at the after march revels; ensure to spread the passion for liberation and justice.

Note: this post is dedicated to my beloved mother, father, my friends and allies; Myna Mukherjee, Raili Roy, Sougato Kerr, Nancy Ordover, Carl Utt, Navid Alam, Amar Puri, Maria Nakae, Ken Williams, Prantik Saha, David Fuentes, Shweta Malhotra, Marian Thambynayagam, Angela Mooney D'Arcy, Mia Mingus, Sonali Sadiquee, Kerry Lobel, Beth Zemsky, Amber Hollibaugh, Abbie Boggs, Suzanne Pharr,Joo Hyan Kang, Trishala Deb, Mimi Jefferson, Debra East, Leslie Van Barselaar, Jo Anne Demark, Monami Maulik, Bo Young, Joey Cain, Lisa Thomas Adeyemo, Sue Hyde, Lisa Weiner Mahfuz, Rodrigo Brandao, Michelle Lopez, Susan Misra, Ruso Panduro, Marta Doanayre, Piali Mukhejee, Paul Knox and all the hot leather daddies who have helped me rediscover my body and ability to experience pleasure.