Uniting American Families Act
Immigration Equality has been the principal advocate for the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA, H.R. 1024, S. 424). They have worked to introduce the legislation, educated Congress members about the need for passage and documented Americans and their families affected by the issue. Immigration Equality has been lobbying for the act since 2000 which would allow "same-sex 'permanent partners' to present documents – joint tax filings, property records, bank accounts – to prove their relationship and petition for a green card" the same as heterosexual couples are able to do. The group placed a warning notice regarding same-sex marriage on the group's website as getting married might actually be more problematic for bi-national same-sex couples. John Nechman, co-chair of Immigration Equality explained "|any of the problems related to legal civil-unions have to do with “intent” under the law. “If they go and marry, when that person goes to apply for an adjustment of status or a new F1 visa, there is going to be a question as to whether he is married. And if he puts down no, he has just committed fraud. If he puts down yes, they’re going to want to know info about the spouse; and if he’s applying for a new F1, that means temporary intent. By putting down a U.S. spouse, that means that you’re intending to stay." In July 2007 executive director Rachel B. Tiven was interviewed on Fox News' political talkshow The O'Reilly Factor about the legislation.
There are currently 115 cosponsors of this legislation in the House of Representatives and 20 cosponsors in the Senate.
Read more about this topic: Immigration Equality (organization)
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“The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
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“Many older wealthy families have learned to instill a sense of public service in their offspring. But newly affluent middle-class parents have not acquired this skill. We are using our children as symbols of leisure-class standing without building in safeguards against an overweening sense of entitlement—a sense of entitlement that may incline some young people more toward the good life than toward the hard work that, for most of us, makes the good life possible.”
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