Help a queer asylum seeker avoid deportation!

We have been connected with S, a queer asylum seeker from West Africa.* They are seeking asylum in the USA because of criminalization of LGBTQ+ people in their country of origin. Fortunately, they have an affirming family member to live with here in Ohio, and their immediate needs are met, but they desperately need legal aid to navigate Immigration Courts. (Asylum seekers in the US have no legal right to a public defender.)

We have contacted every pro bono legal aid org we can find in the last month, and either because of their limited capacity or regional limitations, none have been able to help. We have paid out of our own resources for them to have an initial consultation with an immigration attorney and have agreed to pay $10,000 for this case. A beloved member of the community has made an interest free loan of $5000, and we have contributed $1000. We are trying to raise as much of the $9000 as we can to pay back this generous loan for S’ defense.

We don't know where we will find the money; we know that, as a community, we have enough. There is no guarantee of a positive outcome even with legal representation, but we believe this improves S's prospects enormously.

S has asked us to share the following with you: "Je suis pour demander asile afin de me protéger de la discrimination contre l’homophobie, des menaces, de l’intimidation, de la torture physique et mentale... je sais que j’avais pas la chance de mener ma vie normalement [...]" ("I am seeking asylum in order to protect myself from discrimination, homophobia, threats, intimidation, physical and mental torture. ... I know that I didn't have the chance to lead my life normally [in my country of origin].")

In love and solidarity we are doing what we trust someone would do for us (and in much smaller ways, what our beloved communities already have done for us): We are trying to honor S’s appeal for welcome, to take them at their word when they say they were unsafe in the place they left and feel safer here.

We know we belong to each other.

NOTE: If you belong to a church or other nonprofit that needs further documentation to pay money directly to the lawyers, please send us a message with your email address and we will be in touch.

*At S's own request, we are doing all we can to protect their anonymity and privacy.

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ABOUT US: Paige and Elisabeth (both she/her) have been married for 7 years this month. We live in Cleveland, Ohio, are Episcopalian Christians and have been connected with S through Episcopal Migration Ministries' Rainbow Initiative which prepares Episcopal parishes (and their wider communities) to meet the needs of LGBTQ+ forced migrants. We come to this work knowing very little and learning as much as we can, as fast as we can.

We acknowledge mutual aid as insufficient to address the systemic, historic global forces that endanger and displace millions. We also believe in our responsibility to meet whatever immediate needs we can that stem from these systemic forces, while joining in mass movements to dismantle Empire in societies and in ourselves. We are white, lesbian Christians motivated equally by our experience of Christianity as a tool of oppression and by our experience of the Gospel's potential to be communal, embodied, anti-imperial, and extravagantly welcoming.