Professor Challenges Numerous for LGBT Immigrants

And while there are an estimated 79,200 same-sex couples across the country numerous couples have left the U.S. in order to stay together or because they feared discrimination, according to an article by Dr. Nadine Nakamura, University of La Verne Assistant Professor of Psychology and Dr. Mark Pope from the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

The educators teamed to write an article titled “Borders and Margins: Giving Voice to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Immigrant Experiences. The article was published in the “Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling,” which the professors guest edited.

The article intends to shed light on the immigration challenges facing LGBT immigrants, a rarely discussed topic, they said.

Nakamura, a member of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Immigration, met many same-sex couples while she was living in Canada who had emigrated from the United States so that they could remain together, according to ULV officials.

The U.S. does not currently allow its citizens to sponsor same-sex partners for immigration, which does not leave them many options, officials said.

“I sought to join the American Psychological Association's Task Force on Immigration because of my personal experiences as well as my professional interests in this area,” Nakamura said. “I was especially interested in including an intersectional perspective to the Task Force report and wanted to ensure that the experiences of LGBT immigrants were included.”

President Barack Obama has focused on comprehensive immigration reform and has specifically focused on addressing same-sex families, but there is still more that needs to be accomplished, according to Nakamura’s and Pope’s article. Unfortunately, same-sex bi-national couples are not included in the Senate and House versions of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, they wrote.

“I hope that people will read the special issue and discover an important aspect of intersectionality that has been long overlooked by both the LGBT and the immigration literature,” Nakamura said. “I hope they will read my article and understand the unique challenges that same-sex bi-national couples face as a result of the Defense of Marriage Act, which does not grant married same-sex couples any of the 1000 plus federal rights and benefits associated with marriage, including the right to sponsor one's spouse for a green card.”

Nakamura’s research on this topic is included in the special issue in an article titled “This Was My Only Option: Career Transitions of Canadian Immigrants in Same-Sex Binational Relationships,” that she co-authored with Dr. Anusha Kassan of the University of British Columbia.

In addition to the article, Nakamura is also currently conducting research on same-sex binational couples with the help of several students and has also begun to collect data on same-sex binational couples who have moved to other parts of the world including South Africa, Russia, the UK, Brazil, and China.