facility in dublin, then put him into a visitor's cell which is another glass window with another person, changed the guards, left him there without realizing he was there. then they put him into a general holding cell with about 30 other people. so while i was going to bed warm in bed, he was going to bed in jail. we will be back in immigration court [inaudible] he will be banned from this country for ten years and we will seek refuge [inaudible] not being completed.

>> thank you very much. next speaker. >> good morning. i'm a volunteer with [inaudible]. i want to add a few personal points to a topic that i'm sure you know well. [inaudible] the law of the land does not recognize same sex partners as federally recognized marriages and what we need to do is to get rid of that distinction so that people like me can sponsor our same sex spouses for registration. i had to /khaoutz between my wife and my career. i took early retirement. she has been out of the country without me or we have both been out of the country. we want to be here legally and safely but because

now i have applied for a green card for my wife last year in january, luckily it was not denied but we are under further review and we've been under further review for eight months. we don't have a future we can control. because of our processing my wife hasn't been able to leave the country for over two years. that means instead of become exiles we are prisoners of law as we say in california. we had to watch our son get married on skype because we couldn't go to scotland to watch. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good morn. i'm the founder

of the [inaudible] foundation with advocates for lgtb americans who are forced out of the country to be with persons we love. i'm also the head of the democrats [inaudible] immigration task force and i had the honor of being the dell grate to obama [inaudible] i was born in san francisco raised in i moved to the nether lands 13 years ago because my relationship with my wife lynn isn't recognized by law. when i fell in love with my wife, i faced the choice that no u.s. citizen should have to make. i had to /khaoutz between the person i of and my country. i chose

love and in doing that i gave up my job, my career to start over in a new country and a new language. other countries don't embrace immigrants the same way we do in this country. i visit california whenever i can. i just arrived yesterday to be with my family. my mom's 84 years old now and her health state is steadily declining. we're struggling to find a way to keep her safe and there's no clear answer in sight. it really breaks my heart not to be able to be here to support her. i should not have to move thousands of miles away to become /tp*eurls class citizens in another country. we need to change that. i hope that senator will support our families. >> thank you for sharing your

stories. next spoker please. r r >> i'm a united states citizen and my wife is a british citizen and we were married last month and a week after we met i had to say good buy to her because i am not eligible to sponsor her and there's no pathway to citizenship for same sex financial couples. and i can't really express the hardship that we go through. it's something absolutely incredible that no one should have to /tpaeuls choosing between their country and the person they love. and if we were of different genders, i would be able to apply for a green card and sponsor them. and it just -- even though we were married, there's no pathway for me to do that so we were forced to live apart. and america can do better and it

should do better and comprehensive immigration reform needs to include all families. as it stands, until the laws are changed, there is no future for me and my wife here in america. and that is deeply just more than any and all should have to go through. so i urge this resolution to go forward and that senator comes on board and starts [inaudible] this issue for all of us. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> good morning. my name is kathy, i'm a volunteer for [inaudible] immigration. like more san francisco citizens, i've come here from somewhere

else. i used to live in connecticut and new york where there's marriage equality. we also have marriage quality here for a little while, as you all know. but that doesn't matter whether i married my beautiful australian wife here, new york or canada, where we were finally married. it is a nightmare if you are in a same sex binational relationship. all of our stories are different, how we met. we met here in san francisco at the lexington club at 19th. we live together in the tender knob, [inaudible] which is south of [inaudible]. we've been together 12 years

neither our domestic partnership in 2003 or our marriage two years ago has helped us [inaudible] for her work in her booming technology sector. five years ago she qualified for a /tkpwraoepbl card but that remains in the backlog. so to keep things short i'd like to encourage you to help us ask senator to support us and support same sex binationals and comprehensive immigration reform. >> my name is chris, i'm a long time [inaudible] elect /-ld representatives in congress want to take immigration reform

hostage. as someone who knows what it was like growing up in a con severabletive small tow in virginia, i see their objections for what they are. doma was a bad law when it was passed in 1996 and it's a bad law now. i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today about inclusive immigration reform. your our fellow citizens and i know we're preaching to you as the choir, but as we wait for the supreme to rule on doma and we hope [inaudible] and inclusive, i must speak out in support of the uniting families act. i speak to the need that [inaudible] language is included in any immigration reform bill. we really need

this piece in place, and it will, tend , /tepbld stay with me as i battled hiv related in the mid 90s. we had no idea i would be alive. the cost of this -- he wasn't able to travel when his mom died unexpectedly. i'm able to travel to germany. we're business owners, we run a business, [inaudible] and i thank /kwroulg for your support and your encouragement of senator to support us as well. >> speaker, please. thank you. >> my name is john and i'm the board of directors [inaudible]

this year i celebrate 30 years as a san francisco citizen and [inaudible] thanks to a very brief kennedy administration program. he's one of the lucky ones. we are a family deeply in love. we do all the things that families do. last after co me from my other mother's funeral, his father here became increasingly frail and so he was eventually unable to get out and enjoy all those delicious custards that we are able to enjoy here in san francisco so i learned how to make those things for him. when his dad passed, i planned the funeral myself. we are a lucky couple, but many couples are not so lucky in san

francisco and california and throughout the world. they live in fear that the enormous hand of government will step into their families and separate them at crucial moments like /phaoeupbl and it's like a double closet and we know the cost to the city and to the citizens. they must hide from immigration authorities and some points not. sometimes the american wants to go overseas because it's more welcoming there. in this case we're sendingal [inaudible] one small as peck to full equality and so i urge you to take this small step and urge senator to take this step to help us get equal. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning. i'm

[inaudible] an immigrant from the philippines, a minister and a gay woman living in this country with my [inaudible]. all equally important to me important to me that we are also becoming new mothers this summer. june 21, /#20g 09 was the most difficult day of our life as a couple. jennifer received the denial of my green card application after five years of waiting. feeling betrayed by her own government, jennifer packed our apartment and followed me to vancouver canada. she knew that she could only stay in canada for a limited time because my u.s. visa was also the basis of my job as a minister. i also lost

the ability to support us. the current immigration system and the denial of same sex couples are too interlocking in /skwruls /teus [inaudible] my family. we stayed if canada for four months while my church worked hard and paid a fortune in legal fees to fight these /eupbl justices. i am one of the lucky citizens who was able to get [inaudible] permanent separation, but also emotional [inaudible] my faith accepts me for who i am and also affirms that my relationship with jennifer is as sacred as /tpheupbg else who lives in a loving and /kphuted relationship. i hope you will change the law of this country that will support and protect

the rights of lgtb couples. no one should live in fear that his or her partner will be deported. >> my husband of 23 years is from [inaudible] he became an american citizen. it was a great day for us for many reasons, but one thing is it meant we could plan a solid future together, buy a home and adopt our son who is the light of our leaves the laws /epbl abled us to have this moment and it was only later that i realized that many other binational gay couples just like us could never have such a moment or future. in my own perish in recent years two beautiful strong gay couples have had to move to canada

because our broken immigration system would not allow them to build a life together. i hear heart breaking stories from many families torn apart by unjust immigration laws. we have to stop these injustices. but what is true for these asian and latino families in my neighborhood is no less true for gay families. if a gay father is [inaudible] any other family. all families need and deserve the same protections and i real /aoeutz that the faith community is divided on this herbal shoe across the country. i understand that some have said that if there are any protections for gay families into this bill they will oppose the entire bill. in effect they are say that they are ready to throw the entire immigrant community under the bus in order to insert their own teachings

against ho homosexuality. this is grossly irresponsible. we need protections for all our families, both gay and straight. thank you. >> thank very much. next speaker. >> my name's [inaudible] wrong. i am with an organization that works with lg /t*rbgb [inaudible] and ray [inaudible] at the intersection of these two communities. i think it's needless to say that the people we call our family

are essential. they are the people who care for us when we're sick, they celebrate our joys with us, they build lives and homes with us and they're the people that wake up a little earlier than we do to make us coffee and oatmeal in the morning. family, whether that's our parents our brothers, sisters or partners, it's essential for what it means to be here where we are. i think many of us can agree that partnership is a core part of family for so many of us who are part of lgtb en/khraoudz fighting just to love the people that we love openly and without shame. and we fight just to hold our partner's hand when we walk down the street so of course we're /tkpwoupbg to fight to be able to live and love in the same country. today i'm thinking about a binational couple that i know. they're the kind of people who

pack lunches for each other and leave little love notes underneath their food, they create elaborate birthday surprises for each other. i know they want to spend the rest of their lives together. one is on a visa right now but her time is running occupant and i don't want to imagine what length they'll have to go through and give up in order to stay together. i'm here because the lgtb needs immigration reform that includes all of our families. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning and thank /kwroug for having this gathering. my name is ava, i am a board /phebl of the jewish community [inaudible] in

the san francisco bay area. i'm here to remind you that our communality stands behind inclusivity of all families, no matter their description, no matter their gender, no matter what they look like or come from. as we all know /-rbgsz and many of us believe, the holy one with many nails created um of us equal /hru. not only that, they have equal rights in front of the holy one and they must have equal rights here in this condition country. i hope you will do everything you can and tell /uls what it is we can do to support and comprehensive immigration bill that includes all families, all individuals. we are all part of the same

people. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. >> good morning and thank you so much to super supervisor cam pos. california is a home to the largest population of immigration of immigrants in the united states. immigrants are family members, friends, neighbors and coworkers and many of us like myself are immigrants. california's communities need common sense immigration policies that up hold our basic values and protect the rights we hold dear. protection of the unity of the family must re/phaeupbl at the heart of immigration law and policy. we recognize that there are many times of families and our immigration

laws shall respect all family members, regardless of race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, contact with the criminal justice system or current immigration status. we call for immigration reform that /r-plts the value of unity of the family. for these reasons the california immigrant policy acceptabilitier urges you to adopt this resolution. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> hi, thanks for having us. i'm ashley and this is my partner ki and this issue affects us greatly. we met nine years ago and fell in love immediately and that was a trial in and of itself because i cam came from a very conservative community and i was rejected by my family and communality, but that issue /tk-fpblt compare to this immigration nightmare that we

/tpaeuls. and though we've been lucky and managed to stay together legally here, it's really put us through the ringer. we've had to uproot and move /twaoeuls, she had to get a second-degree to stay on a student visa, which was a financial burden because that was expensive and we had to live on my income alone. it's been really difficult for her. she has felt like a perez /tpher in this country, too afraid to leave that she wouldn't get back in so she's missed saying /tkpwaold bye to the grandmother who raised her on her death bed and /pheultszed funerals of close families, /herpl brother's wedding, her niece's birth and didn't see her family for eight years so it's been really hard, but the most difficult part is that we live with every single day that she'll lose her job and that we will have to find

another country to live in. the country she was razed in -- she was raised in [inaudible] we wouldn't be able to move there and we're not sure where we would move. so we've had to put our future on hold until we get equality and it's becoming really frustrating and scary and we know a lot of people have fought that battle much longer than us, but we don't want our whole lives to be about this /-fp we want to move on and that's why we want our family to be included in comprehensive immigration reform. >> thank you. next speaker. >> thank you. the representative for aclu had to leave because of a scheduleing conflict so i'm reading the

statement for the record. the aclu of [inaudible] upholds the values of fairness, equality and rights for all. immigration reform must include the [inaudible] committed and loving couples in same sex relationships to sponsor the spouse or permanent partner in the same way opposite sex couples have long been able to. this has cost this lbgt families to live in fear for far too long. this is a critical component of any reform proposal. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> thank you supervisor campos and yee. i'm a resident of a

state that tried to legislate morality or a type of morality through proposition eight. now those same forces are trying to do the same thing through a federal immigration bill. i want to thank you supervisor campos for taking the lead on united families acting. you supervisor campos are this generation's hero for equality. senator diane knew the first openly gay elected official, harvey milk and she also announced his assassination. i urge her to ask herself the one question, what would harvey do?

would he stand up for equality and will you? thank you. >> thank you, sir. i have another speaker card from ashley meyer, but any /phebl of the public who has not spoken who would like to speak please come forward. so with that we will close public comment. just want to add a couple of points. the amendments -- there are a couple that are being considered and one of 'em is amendment six, which would allow same sex binational couples a u.s. citizen to sponsor his or her domestic partner in any part of the country. amendment seven would allow that sponsorship only if people -- the couple has been married in one of the states that recognizes legal marriage.

the reason why i think all of us support amendment six and /whao*eu it is such a clear choice is that if the you only limit this right to couples that have been married in the few states that recognize same sex marriage, it means that in places like california that same sex couples living in this state which does not allow for same sex marriage, we would have to travel outside the state of california for us to actually exercise something like that. that the not equality. that is not equal treatment under the law. and our hope is that the delegation that represents us in washington dc will send a very clear message that the citizens that they represent, the people of the state of california, the

lgtb people of the state of california have the right to the same rights as residents of any other state. it's a very basic e principal. we want to be very clear, on record that this is an important issue. and some have said if you include lgtb rights in comprehensive immigration reform, that will kill immigration reform. i beg to differ. if you do not include lgtb rights and comprehensive immigration reform then you don't really have real reform. it is hatred, bias and prejudice that will kill the reform. the people who hire against the lgtb community are

people are basing their opinion on something that is prejudice. that's what it is about. so i ask my /kol likes today to move this forward to the board of supervisors and my hope is that we will have a unanimous vote to the board of supervisors so we can send it over to other representatives so they can see that san francisco is united in this fight. supervisor yee. >> thank you. i want to thank all the individuals and organizations that came out today and in particular the individuals that shared their stories. i'm very thankful of what i heard today. before i move this, i agree that we need to make those amendments and i woul