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Podcasts Take Two
Why it's easier for LGBT immigrants to gain asylum in US
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Jun 17, 2014
Listen • 8:24
Why it's easier for LGBT immigrants to gain asylum in US
Once barred from emigrating into the U.S., lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender foreigners have found it easier to seek asylum in this country.
IXTEPEC, MEXICO - AUGUST 05: Honduran transgender immigrant Daniela, 20, spends spends time at the Hermanos en el Camino immigrant shelter on August 5, 2013 in Ixtepec, Mexico. She has been staying at the shelter for more than a month while Mexican immigration authorities process documents to allow her to travel to the U.S. border via bus, a much safer alternative than riding the freight trains north, where women and transgender immigrants like Daniela are especially at risk of rape. Thousands of Central American migrants ride atop the trains, known as 'la bestia', or the beast, during their long and perilous journey north through Mexico. Some of the immigrants are robbed and assaulted by gangs who control the train tops, while others fall asleep and tumble down, losing limbs or perishing under the wheels of the trains. Only a fraction of the immigrants who start the journey in Central America will traverse Mexico completely unscathed - and all this before illegally entering the United States and facing the considerable U.S. border security apparatus designed to track, detain and deport them. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Honduran transgender immigrant Daniela, 20, spends spends time at the Hermanos en el Camino immigrant shelter on August 5, 2013 in Ixtepec, Mexico. She has been staying at the shelter for more than a month while Mexican immigration authorities process documents to allow her to travel to the U.S. border via bus, a much safer alternative than riding the freight trains north, where women and transgender immigrants like Daniela are especially at risk of rape.
(
John Moore/Getty Images
)

Once barred from emigrating into the U.S., lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender foreigners have found it easier to seek asylum in this country.

Once barred from emigrating into the U.S., lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender foreigners have found it easier to seek asylum in this country. 

Many LGBT immigrants are trying to escape violence and persecution at home with large numbers coming from Central and South America, where tolerance of alternative sexual orientations and gender identities are slow to arrive.

Wall Street Journal reporter Joel Millman joins the show with more.