HuffPost Live: Rep. Mike Quigley’s LGBT Equality Fight
The following is a transcription from a Huffington Post story on LGBT Equality on June 3, 2013. A copy of the article can be found here.
Mike Sacks: This is HuffPost Live I'm Mike Sacks. After careful negotiations in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the bill for comprehensive Immigration reform is on its way to the Senate floor. But one last minute removal crushed the hopes of many LGBT supporters. We're joined now by Congressman Mike Quigley, representing the 5th District of Illinois, and Grant Gochnauer, he is an entrepreneur from Chicago, he is experiencing firsthand the lack of protection for LGBT immigrants. Congressman, let's start with you, you have been an advocate for the LGBT community for quite some time, what was your initial reaction to the Senate Judiciary Committee's decision?
Mike Quigley: I was very, very disappointed and I immediately talked to my staff about the possibility of getting that back into some provision " either when it comes back to the House or it goes for a full vote. But it's not something we want to give up on lightly.
Sacks
And what exactly happened there? It was a provision to protect LGBT immigrant couples that was put in and then pulled out, what happened?
Quigley
I don't know the specifics of what happened behind the scenes, if I had to guess it was probably doing some nose counting about what they thought was viable, and unfortunately, as you heard Senator Durbin and others say on the floor, it was a real crushing blow for our friends in the LGBT community and it's not one that I want to give up on " I'd like to restore that to protect our friends like Grant and Gabe.
Sacks: Yeah, and in your effort to highlight the need for LGBT immigration equality, you met Grant here in our hangout. Grant, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your partner, Gabe?
Grant Gochnauer: Sure, first of all, thanks for having me on your show today. I'm a Chicago entrepreneur, I started a business here about seven years ago with four folks here in Chicago, and now we've grown the business to about sixty people and we've just moved our office location in the West Loop, which is very exciting. Gabe and I have also been together about seven years now, he and I met and just hit it off right away. He is from Brazil, which obviously creates an extra complexity for us to stay together, and as we think about having children and so forth, the marriage laws and the visa laws have prevented us from thinking about our future together.
Sacks: Explain the interaction between your relationship and those immigration and visa laws. Does Gabe have to head back to Brazil for a good chunk of time every year in order to maintain his visa here in the United States, how exactly does it work? Grant?
Gochnauer: Well thankfully, so Gabe is an architect here in the city. Can you hear me?
Sacks: I can, we have a little delay, but we gotcha.
Gochnauer
Oh great. So Gabe is an architect here in the city, and thankfully, through his work he was able to get an H1B work visa, so through that he is able to stay here, and that visa lasts for three years at which point he can renew it and stay for another three years. At that point, he would have to reapply for an H1B visa, which can always be a challenge and is never for certain. The challenge we faced when he was originally applying was being an architect, the economy was not such that there was a lot of hiring going on, so to hire someone from Brazil is extra cost and extra (inaudible) for an employer, so that is a little scary.
Sacks: And Congress, Congressman, what steps in Congress have you taken to help all families be treated equally?
Quigley: First of all, I want folks to know this is, Grant and Gabe's story is all too common. There is an estimated 36,000 similar couples in this situation who aren't able to sponsor their permanent partner for residency. So, that's why this matters so much. There is a human story behind each one of those 36,000 stories. We had hoped this would be taken care of in any number of ways. First, by being part of comprehensive immigration reform. There is a United American Families Act, which is a standalone bill I strongly support, which would also accomplish this and remove this burdensome problem for them. So we hope one of those two measures will take place. We also remember, we are in June. It is very likely the Supreme Court will hand down its critical decision on DOMA this month. It's conceivable it could happen this week. If they strike down DOMA, I think that that's another way this issue could be resolved because it would just allow people " it would strike down this "so called Defense of Marriage Act that we passed here a long time ago.
Sacks: Yeah. Now say, in the unlikely circumstance that the Supreme Court does not strike down DOMA, Gabe, I want to ask you, would you move out of the country, would you move your business out of the Country, Grant, I apologize, in order to be with Gabe, if his immigration visa runs out and he can't come back to the country?
Gochnauer
Yeah. It's a good question and, in fact, it's probably the most common question that I receive. There's no way that I could really move the business out of the country. You know, if we have sixty people that depend on us for their livelihood and their families of course, so, you know, thankfully I have a little more flexibility in terms of my business, it's a technology business, so, you know, there could possibly be an opportunity to work remotely from Brazil, but, that would be a hard choice. Brazil actually would recognize our relationship for Immigration purposes. But Gabe hasn't been to Brazil for a long time, so alternatively we could just go to a completely different country altogether. So, that's something that hopefully we won't have to make that decision, but it would be a very, very hard one.
Sacks: And Congressman, if the vote were today on immigration reform, how do you think it would do in the House?
Quigley: It depends on what version comes over from the Senate. I think what people need to be concerned about is that a Senate bill of some reasonable measures will probably come over sometime in the next three or four weeks, perhaps a vote by the fourth of July. My concern is that there will be a lot of poison pills. I think the House will be a tougher act. It's republican controlled and a lot of Conservative folks over here want to put measures in here that will make this overly burdensome for normal people to move toward a path toward citizenship. So, the answer basically depends on how bad they've made this bill. I think it unfortunately has a better chance to pass the worse the bill is in the House.
Sacks: And this week, Congressman, you voted against the Keystone XL Pipeline, while Representatives Shimkus and Davis, also from Illinois, renewed their support. So what do you make of this?
Quigley: You know, I really don't understand. I think if you live in the City of Chicago, the pipeline will probably, if its built, will probably raise your gas prices. If you are shipping gas down to the Gulf of Mexico to be refined instead of refining it in the Chicagoland area, you're just going to increase the cost of how much it takes to fill your tank. It's very, very concerning to support a measure like this for environmental points of view. We have a major pipeline burst out west that's caused significant environmental damage. We had another one in Michigan that caused tremendous environmental damage. I just don't see the upside to this. It's not going to make us more energy independent, it's going to hurt the environment, and it's going to increase the cost of gasoline in the Chicagoland area.
Sacks: Representative Quigley, Grant, thank you both very much for joining, pleasure speaking to both of you, and everyone else out there, keep watching HuffPost Live.