Give me your tired, your poor, your ray ...

MORE AND MORE GAY FOREIGNERS TURN TO THE UNITED STATES FOR REFUGE

Coming out of the closet is a liberating experience for most gay men and lesbians. But when 17-year-old Ciprian Cucu came out in 1993 in a small Romanian town, both he and his 23-year-old boyfriend were thrown in jail. "Our pictures with our full names and addresses were printed in the newspaper," Cucu says. "Everyone knew about it."

The newspaper stories ensured that the abuse didn't stop when the two men were released from prison several months later. Cucu was expelled from high school, and after being turned away from job after job, Cucu's boyfriend eventually joined a religious cult and, in 1995, committed suicide.

That same year, human rights activists familiar with Cucu's story invited him to testify before the United Nations in New York City. Once there, he says he was so amazed to find a place where he was no longer "afraid to be out on the street" that he decided to stay. In 1995 Cucu, now 24, joined a growing number of gay and lesbian foreigners who have applied for political asylum in the United States on the basis of the risk posed by their sexual orientation in their homeland. When his request was granted on July 4, 1996, Cucu says simply, "I got a life."

The United States has historically represented a safe place for refugees fleeing political and religious persecution. But the government only recently enlarged its welcome mat to give protection to some gays and lesbians. In 1994, after Attorney General Janet Reno made a precedent out of a case involving a gay Cuban man, gays and lesbians were added to the category of "membership in a particular social group"--one of four possible reasons for persecution that could be grounds for political asylum (nationality, race, and religion are the others). According to the law, applicants must demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution based on past persecution or risk of persecution in the future" based on their sexual orientation if they were to return to their country. As of last year, applicants have one year from the time they enter the country to file their claim.

Despite this new openness, gay and lesbian asylum seekers still may face a double standard when their cases are heard, according to Suzanne Goldberg, senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national gay and lesbian civil rights group that handles and provides assistance in a large number of asylum cases. "In Lambda cases and in cases we advise, there have been a number of denials where applicants would have been granted asylum if they were fleeing on grounds other than sexual orientation," Goldberg says. She cites one example of a Russian lesbian who was denied asylum despite being able to prove that in her home country she faced the threat of psychiatric institutionalization because of her homosexuality.

Gays and lesbians face similar persecution in many pads of the world, but the largest number of those seeking asylum are from Central and South America, Asia, and the Middle East, according to Lavi Soloway, an immigration lawyer and board chair of the five-year-old Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force. Soloway says he's heard stories of suffering and brutality including harassment, extortion, rape, and torture at the hands of police, militia and mobs, and family members.

"Human rights violations against gay and lesbian people are very widespread," says Michael Heflin, director of Amnesty International's Outfront, a program devoted to combating human rights violations against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals around the world. "Twelve countries in the world call for the execution of people convicted of same-sex sexual relationships."

People making claims do not have to show that they have suffered violence or harassment themselves, "They could have a well-founded fear based on what happened to another gay man in their country," Soloway says. But they do have to collect proof of human rights violations against gay people in their country.

Several national organizations have coalesced around assisting gay and lesbian asylum seekers. The Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force, based in New York City, with half a dozen city chapters elsewhere, has created a network of activists, attorneys, and asylum seekers who help educate people on the law and assist them in preparing their claims, In 1997 the organization jointly produced with the Chicago human rights organization Heartland Alliance a 179-page handbook designed to give asylum seekers and their advocates step-by-step instructions in building their cases.

Protection for gays and lesbians under immigration law is so new that many foreigners, whether they're in the country illegally or have come out while they were studying in the United States, may not even be aware that asylum options exist, Soloway says. It is estimated that since 1994, only 1,000-2,000 claims have been made. But because those cases are confidential, it's impossible to know how many people, like Cucu, have been granted asylum.

Individual cases can be slow to build, says William Schiller, a Chicago immigration lawyer and volunteer for the task force through the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center. He says it's difficult to build trusting relationships with his clients because often they don't immediately fell him why they're seeking asylum. "You have people who basically have fled their country and don't trust authority figures to begin with," Schiller explains. "If a client is afraid of persecution based on his or her sexual orientation, we have to advise them and educate them about the process here, and that [they] should presume that they're going to get a fair hearing, Our experience has been that they do."

That's good news for Saw Teng of Malaysia, who is awaiting a court decision on his asylum application. Saw Teng has "blossomed" since coming to New York several years ago, according to his boyfriend, Larry: "He bas come to accept his sexuality, and his self-esteem and sense of self-worth have grown an incredible amount." Had Saw Teng stayed in Malaysia, however, he would have faced the threat of prison, monetary fines, and caning.

Savage is a Chicago-based freelance writer.