Executive Summary

Immigration Equality is the national leader in the field we pioneered: LGBTQ and HIV immigration rights. We work on both the personal and systemic levels to protect and uplift LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants/families. Through direct legal services, policy advocacy, and impact litigation, our small team has achieved massive victories for our community.

A vast majority of our leadership, board, and staff are LGBTQ, HIV-positive, and/or immigrants who share the lived experiences of our community and who utilize their expertise in immigration law and policy to advance our mission.

Our successes include:

* Providing no-cost services to 700+ asylum seekers a year, including direct legal representation, legal advice, limited representation clinics, and substantial self-help resources.

* Advocating on behalf of hundreds of LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants in detention and providing them with various types of direct and pro se assistance, as well as responding to more than 2,000 calls annually to our detention hotline.

* Winning 99% of our asylum cases each year.

* Securing major policy reforms, like overturning the immigration ban on HIV-positive immigrants and securing a third gender marker (“X”) on U.S. passports.

* Authoring the LGBTQ chapter of the U.S. government’s asylum and refugee officer basic training manual.

* Blocking Trump’s Death to Asylum rules in federal court, which would have taken effect at the end of his presidency without our intervention.

* Filing a formal complaint during the pandemic with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that secured the immediate release of all of our HIV-positive clients in ICE detention.

* Forcing the State Department—after winning four different federal district court lawsuits and two circuit court appeals—to end their unconstitutional policy that denied birthright citizenship to foreign-born children of same-sex married couples.

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