March 4, 2013

EVENTS: Center for American Progress to host panel on the LGBT undocumented (March 8)

by Editor • Legislation • Tags: binational, couples, for, same, unmarried

From the Center for American Progress:

Passing an immigration reform bill with a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented individuals living in the U.S. would lift LGBT undocumented persons out of the shadows, treat them with the dignity they deserve, and enable them to become full and equal participants in our society, economy, and democracy.

Please join the Center for American Progress for a discussion on the LGBT undocumented and the special obstacles they face, including their inability to sponsor their same-sex spouse or partner for residency, their frequent mistreatment while in immigration detention centers, their challenges while seeking asylum, and the solutions that lie ahead.

You can follow this event on twitter using the hashtag #Out4Citizenship.

Continue at Center for American Progress for details

October 18, 2012

Seniors turning to health exchanges as employers drop Medicare coverage

by Editor • Aging, Healthcare, Legislation • Tags: binational, couples, for, same, unmarried

From Think Progress:

As employers continue to find ways of cutting their health spending, an increasing number of firms have stopped offering supplemental health benefit plans to retirees on Medicare. Instead, companies are contracting with external insurance marketplaces — exchanges similar to the state-wide models mandated by Obamacare in 2014 — to provide Medicare-eligible retirees with a choice of supplemental plans to cover benefits such as hospital visits and prescription drugs, Kaiser Health News reports.

Continue at source

October 10, 2012

lgbtSr contributor Judy Rickard and wife Karin Bogliolo on HuffPost Live

by Editor • Judy Rickard, Legislation • Tags: binational, couples, for, same, unmarried

Judy and Karin were recently on HuffPost Live as part of a discussion on the immigration challenges faced by binational same-sex couples.

Cross-posted from Judy’s blog:

Karin and I joined several others on a HuffPost Live Hangout today – October 9, 2012 – and talked about our lives as members of same-sex binational families. One guest was Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality. The rest of us were partners and spouses in different scenarious facing DOMA – Defense of Marriage Act – and its discrimination against us – gay and lesbian American and non-American spouse couples.

Brian’s husband is facing deportation. Erik’s is undocumented. Tiffany’s wife can’t get back into America from Canada now, but they hope to be reunited soon. Tiffany’s son is livid, she says, about their family being torn apart. Karin and I are stuck in America together now – we started calling ourselves Prisoners of Love. We used to be Love Exiles when we were forced out together. Now we are coming up on two years here and we can’t visit family and friends outside America because Karin won’t be let back in, most likely. We can’t take that risk while we are in proceedings since I filed for a marriage-based green card.

So to see the HuffPost Live Hangout program, go to this site:

http://tinyurl.com/8qbb7ly

Continue at Judy’s blog.