Seeking Safety

Seeking Safety

    Walter Rey waits in a dilapidated restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, wondering if this is really his life. It seems like just yesterday Rey was living the life of a normal boy in Columbia. He had friends and a girlfriend, and went to school. But that all changed when he met Alberto. He felt different; the way we all feel when we meet someone special. When he first saw Alberto he realized he was gay.
    What followed in the next four years of Rey's life was constant police harassment, beatings and extortion, all of which forced him to emigrate to the United States.
    Within the last four years, gays and lesbians from around the world have immigrated to the United States seeking asylum based on their sexual orientation. Since 1990, 125 gays and lesbians, including a few bisexual and transgender people, have been granted asylum based on their sexual orientation.
    According to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, the number of gay and lesbian claimants in 1996 were insignificant compared to the 12,000 others seeking political asylum for ethnic and religious persecution.
    Advocates are predicting that a recent change in immigration laws will decrease the already low number of gay asylum claims. A new law requires all candidates seeking asylum to apply within one year of arrival. Eligible claimants already living in the United States must apply before April 1.
    "One year is not enough time for anyone changing culture, country, and language," says Dusty Araujo, asylum project coordinator at the International Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "There's no one telling them this is the answer for you."
    Fear of disclosing sexuality to an attorney and lack of legal knowledge have contributed to the low number of gay and lesbian claims, says the International Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
    "It's just a tiny drop in the bucket [gay asylum cases]," says Shannon Minter, a lawyer at the National Coalition for Lesbian Rights. "However those few cases could mean life or death to someone."
    Gays and lesbians who experience or fear persecution in their home countries have been eligible for asylum in the United States as "members of a particular social group" since 1994 when Attorney General Janet Reno established a case, involving a Cuban gay asylum-seeker, as legal precedent.
    By acknowledging that gays and lesbians were members of a recognized group, Reno's decision made it easier for gay asylum-seekers to win their cases. But just being gay or lesbian doesn't qualify a claimant for asylum. The burden rests on the asylum-seeker to prove that there is a possibilty for persecution in their country based on protected criteria established in the original asylum law.
    These protected criteria—race, religion, nationality, political opinion and membership in a particular social groups—were developed with World War II in mind, in anticipation that new forms of persecution would develop under future repressive governments.
    Immigration officials and judges must decide each claim on a case by case basis. Decisions are based on the claimants testimony and information in the form of news articles, journals and books about the conditions of gays and lesbians in their country of origin.
    The stories are often horrifying, compelling testimonies of the treatment gays and lesbians endure in their homeland. Rey recalls the night he and three friends were standing outside a bar talking when three police in a van arrested them for disturbing the peace and drove them to a local park.
    Rey says police ordered the men to empty their wallets and then take off their clothes. One by one police took the men into the van and raped them.
    The first time he told his story (to a lawyer) the words were difficult to find. But after having to tell his story so often during the interviewing process his experiences flow as if he's reciting a book of somebody else's life.
    "I closed that chapter in my life and didn't want to deal with those feelings," says Rey. "The first time I told my story it was very intense and emotional, but now talking about it is therapeutic."
    Although there are no quotas on the number of people eligible for asylum there is one catch: you can only apply for asylum once in the United States. Rey arrived in the United States in 1985, but only recently applied after meeting another gay asylum-seeker.
    Late one night after coming home from a Columbian night club, Rey found his mother crying. Tipped off by an anonymous phone call, Rey's mother found his journal and a gay pornographic magazine in his room. He couldn't deny his sexuality any longer.
    Rey left for the United States the following year. He flew into Tijuana where he met a man at a restaurant near the Mexico-San Diego border who helped him get into the United States.
    When immigrating to the United States from Mexico, it's typical to hire a locally known guide or a coyote, to help you across the border. When Rey's coyote finally arrives, there are no formal salutations or names exchanged, only money. He immediately escorts Rey to the car and drives him to a hill near the border to wait for the second coyote.
    On top of the hill Rey can see the lights of San Diego. Their radiance is as beautiful and shining as stars, and just as far away. Now the only thing that stands between him and those bright lights is time.
    At midnight his second escort finally arrives. With just his memory to guide him, he leads Rey through the hills to a sewer pipe. Huddled over, both men wade through murky water and debris, stopping only when they reach the other side.
    "I feel so great knowing that I can be myself here and people are not judging me and putting me down like in Columbia," said Rey as his eyes become red and tear-filled. "I'm more secure with myself, my sexuality and my life. I just feel that I am normal."