http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/06/05/09/pinay-...tifies-congress

WASHINGTON D.C. The Senate judiciary committee heard Wednesday the testimony of Filipino lesbian mother, Shirley Tan, who flew thousands of miles to lend her voice for the proposed Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).

Immigration agents raided last January, the home that Tan shared with her longtime partner Jay Mercado and their 12-year-old twins in Pacifica, California.

Tan, 43, and Mercado, 48, have been living as a couple for 23 years (they are registered domestic partners who wed in 2004).

Although Mercado is an American citizen, she can not file a petition to grant Tan permanent resident status because US federal law only recognizes marriage between men and women.

“For too long, gay and lesbian American citizens whose partners are foreign national have been denied the ability to sponsor their loved ones for lawful permanent residency,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the judiciary committee.

“The preservation of family unit is the core of our immigration legal system,” he stressed.

Leahy had invited Tan to testify before his panel.

Tan recounted how she first visited California in 1986 and found love in Mercado. “I met Jay when, as a graduation present, my father brought me to the United States. We met through our parents…and our love was instantaneous,” she told the panel.

Our family is fortunate. We have never felt discriminated against in our community. Our friends, mostly heterosexual couples, call as the ‘model family’,” Tan declared.

But she did fear going back to the Philippines because a cousin who shot her in the head and murdered her mother and sister in 1979 was released from prison.

She applied for asylum but was turned down. But Tan said they never received the order of deportation in 2002 so they were completely taken aback by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in January.

Tan struggled to tell her story, her voice cracking from the tension and emotion.

“Before I knew it, I was handcuffed and taken away like a criminal. I was put into a van with two men in yellow jump suits and chains and searched like a criminal in a way I have only seen in movies,” she told the panel.

One of her sons, however, broke into tears he listened to his mother telling the panel how she was arrested, detained and only allowed to go home after a monitoring device was strapped on her ankle.

“Since this thing happened to us,” Tan told ABS-CBN’s Balitang America after the hearing, “the kids may have been scarred for life. It’s very painful to think that one of your parents, a parent you love, will be taken away from you.”

“That’s too much for them to handle right now,” she added.

Leahy ordered a pause in the hearing to send an aide over and ask if Tan’s sons would like to wait out the hearing in his office. The boys opted to remain with their parents.

Tan’s arrest triggered a firestorm that thrust her to the forefront of this often controversial issue.

She was saved from deportation by California Rep. Jackie Speier, who sat through much of today’s hearing by Tan’s side. And the short reprieve grew into a two-year postponement after Senator Dianne Feinstein filed a rare, special bill specifically in behalf of Tan.

Mercado insists they are not activists. “We’re not political, we don’t even go to rallies,” she explained, “we’re just a simple family living together.”

The other witness was Gordon Stewart who was forced to sell the family farm and relocate to London so he can be with his partner, who is Brazilian.

They are pinning their hopes on the passage of the UAFA, unfazed by the prospect of more stringent safeguards to overcome fears the bill might increase the potential for fraud.

The bill is supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Bar Association.

NAACP chairman Julian Bond stressed that “Gay and lesbian rights are not special rights in any way. It isn’t ‘special’ to be free from discrimination. It is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship.”

“Passage of the UAFA will not only benefit me but the thousands of people who are also in the same situation. I submit to the committee today that changing the immigration laws to include permanent partners will serve in the long run to keep families together,” Tan testified.

There are an estimated 8,000 same sex couples where one partner is in danger of deportation.

“I am confident the US Citizenship and Immigration Services will have no more difficulty discovering fraudulent arrangements between same sex couples than heterosexual couples,” Leahy declared.

Sen. Jeff Session, the senior Republican in the judiciary committee, said he couldn’t support the bill because it would tantamount to federal recognition of same sex unions.

He noted this was specifically prohibited by the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996.

Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the UAFA was “unworkable” and could wreak havoc on the immigration system.

“The reason same sex partners and others who are unmarried but in long-term relationships can not now qualify for spousal immigration benefits is because federal law defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Immigration law and all other areas of federal law are subject to that definition,” she testified.

Vaughn averred the more practical course was for Congress to amend or repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

Sessions also echoed the concern of the Catholic Bishops Conference, which back immigration reforms but oppose the UAFA, because it will “erode the institution of marriage and family by affording marriage-like immigration benefits to same sex relationships.”

Some say this cocktail of immigration and the rights of same sex couples will make it difficult to push the UAFA to finally become law.