For the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, most of the discussion around immigration centers around family reunification and H!B Visas.  But this story highlights that immigration is a complicated issue that affects our community on multiple levels.

Shirley Tan is from the Philippines.  She is also a lesbian who has been in a relationship for over 23 years with her partner Jay Mercado. They have two twelve-year old sons. Tan faces deportation, but was given a reprieve in late April via a private bill from Senator Dianne Feinstein that will allow her to stay in this country until the end of this session of Congress or until the Uniting American Families Act passes. She testified in a heart-felt speech before Congress today. The UAFA would allow American citizens to sponsor their bi-national partners.

While there is a big push for comprehensive immigration reform, many members of the immigration are not on board with this one aspect. From the New York Times:

Groups backing the overhaul this year have cobbled together a wide-ranging but fragile coalition that includes Latino and black groups, Roman Catholic and evangelical Christian churches, farm workers and commercial farmers, and some employer groups. In contrast to 2007, organized labor is united this time around in supporting the overhaul.

The political fault lines opened by Senator Leahy’s same-sex bill quickly became apparent this week. In a letter sent Tuesday, Bishop John C. Wester of Salt Lake City, the chairman of the Catholic bishops’ Committee on Migration, wrote that the Uniting American Families Act would “erode the institution of marriage and family,” by taking a position “that is contrary to the very nature of marriage which pre-dates the Church and the State.”

For a lot of the groups in the current immigration coalition, this is issue is a challenge, particularly for the Catholic Church. It will be interesting to see how "comprehensive" comprehensive reform means.