More Seek Asylum to Flee Anti-Gay Persecution

Growing up in a small town in Mexico’s Jalisco state, Antonio remembers when an elderly man was stabbed to death for being gay. The crime went unpunished, dismissed by authorities as a “crimen pasional,” the Spanish term for “crime of passion,” he said.

As a teenager, Antonio became a political activist, working against Mexico’s ruling party. Because of that, he contends that the government put him on a blacklist that would have prevented him from entering the University of Guadalajara, a public school, to study law.

“I saw that I had no options,” Antonio said. “I couldn’t afford to pay for an expensive [private] university, and as a closet gay I was going to live a miserable life in denial.”

So in 1990, at age 19, he left Jalisco, crossed illegally into the United States near Tijuana and arrived in Los Angeles.

Last week, a U.S. immigration judge in Los Angeles granted Antonio political asylum, making him one of the relatively few Mexican nationals to win refuge here.

His openly gay lifestyle and his past political affiliations would make him a target for persecution in Jalisco, said Antonio, who asked that his full name not be published because of concern that his family would be ostracized.

Out of 55,000 asylum requests from Mexican nationals in the last three years, 144 were granted.

Community leaders nationwide say Antonio’s case reflects a small but growing trend: Gays and lesbians from Mexico and other nations are increasingly applying for asylum based on past persecution or fears of repression arising from their sexual orientation.

Because a copy of the judge’s decision was not released, the precise basis on which the ruling was made is not known.

But Antonio’s lawyer, Enrique Arevalo, said Immigration Judge Nathan W. Gordon took into account the fact that Antonio is both homosexual and a political activist, making him vulnerable to persecution if he was returned to Mexico.

Immigration and Naturalization Service attorneys would not comment on the case, but Arevalo said the government has appealed Gordon’s decision.

Apparently bolstering Antonio’s case was a letter from a Mexican congresswoman, who said crimes against gays often receive only token attention from law enforcement agencies in her country. Antonio’s political activism would only worsen his situation in Mexico, she wrote.

“He would live in constant fear of being physically attacked or maybe even killed,” wrote Patria Jimenez, one of the few openly gay politicians in Mexico.

Antonio, who works as a guidance counselor in a Los Angeles HIV education center, rejoiced at the decision.

“Now I can live my life with a community where I am free to be who I am,” he said.

Antonio was detained by INS officials while returning from a 1997 AIDS/HIV gathering in Puerto Rico. That’s when he asked for asylum.

He worked against Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, by becoming an activist for what was to become the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party.

During court hearings, Antonio’s lawyers said that under the current conservative state government in Jalisco--led by the National Action Party, known as the PAN--his client would suffer persecution.

Without commenting directly on Antonio’s case, Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles, Jose Angel Pescador, acknowledged that some parts of his country are still afflicted by a “virulent homophobia,” in which gays may be subject to jokes or unnecessary criticism.

“But they are not victims of political persecution,” Pescador said. “In Mexico one does not persecute ideas.”

U.S. officials could provide no breakdown on how many of the successful Mexican asylum applicants cited their sexual orientation, political activism--or some other reason--for their fears of persecution.

Under asylum law, all successful applicants must demonstrate that they have been persecuted in their homelands or face a “well-founded fear of persecution” if returned there. Asylum leads to legal permanent residence status, allowing beneficiaries to remain and work in the United States--and eventually to become U.S. citizens.

Perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 applications from gays and lesbians fearing persecution are now in the asylum pipeline nationwide, said Suzanne Goldberg, senior staff attorney with the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national gay rights legal group based in New York.

That is still a distinct minority in a U.S. asylum application pool that approaches 400,000 pending cases, mostly from people citing fears of direct political persecution. According to community estimates, no more than several hundred gay men and lesbians have been granted asylum based on fears of persecution linked to their sexual orientation.

Although many asylum cases are hard to win, activists say immigration judges and INS asylum officers are often particularly wary of claims by homosexuals.

“Our sense is that sometimes a higher standard is applied to gay and lesbian applicants,” Goldberg said.

A year ago, the INS issued a controversial report that cited an “improving” climate for homosexuals in Mexico, “despite deep-seated problems with prejudice and discrimination.” The study is a key resource for INS officers reviewing claims of asylum by gay people from Mexico.

Gay activists denounced the report as inaccurately downplaying threats and repression in a nation where homosexuality remains heavily stigmatized and, they say, violence against gays regularly goes unpunished.

INS officials deny any double standard for homosexuals. But officials stress that merely being gay or lesbian is not a ticket to a green card.

“You have to establish that you have been persecuted, or you have a fear of persecution, based on being a member of a particular group,” said Bill Strassberger, an INS spokesman.

Any extension of asylum rights to gays or other groups is an incendiary issue in the larger immigration debate.

Groups seeking cuts in immigration levels have decried what they see as the improper opening of the asylum door to include gay people, women alleging gender discrimination and even people fleeing coercive population-control programs.

“If we start granting political asylum to people who are ostracized in their own society because of sexual orientation or other things like that, we could potentially end up with an unlimited number of asylum applicants coming to this country,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants to reduce new entries. “You have to define this in a way that limits the number of people, because otherwise the system breaks down.”