Immigration Law Divides Gay Couples. Joseph Racicot and his partner, Roland, will celebrate their eighth anniversary as a couple on Tuesday. They would love to have a quiet dinner in the ranch-style home they picked out in Houston, share a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and rehash the story of how they met.Instead, they will spend their anniversary some 1,500 miles apart — Racicot in Saskatchewan, Canada, and Roland in their Houston home — linked only by cell phones and the belief that they belong together, despite the difficulty of maintaining a long-distance relationship complicated by immigration issues.
“The bottom line is that we wouldn’t be going through this if, as an American, I had the right to sponsor my partner,” said Roland, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of repercussions at his workplace.
In December 2004, Racicot was questioned by a Customs inspector after returning from Canada and was refused admission because of questions about his education qualifications, he said.With more paperwork to document his degree, Racicot was granted another TN visa in Minneapolis in 2005. But he was flagged in a Department of Homeland Security database by the time he tried to return to Houston from a trip to Canada in June 2006.He was taken out of the U.S. Customs line and questioned. Racicot had changed jobs, and the inspector said that he no longer met the visa qualifications.Racicot said he was honest with the inspector. Racicot, 47, said: “I want to be with my partner. I want to live with my partner in Houston.”Now, in hindsight, Racicot said, it was a “bad mistake.”
Gay couples lobby for immigration benefits from US
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Promoting public awareness of the need for fairness in immigration policy particularly as it relates to the rights of same-sex bi-national couples in the United States who seek equal immigration rights; Providing information regarding political issues relating to gay immigration equality issues, rights and policy.
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