ABSTRACT
After over a decade of lobby efforts predominantly led by the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Taskforce [LEGIT], Canada’s 2002 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act extended formal recognition to “same-sex” 2 couples for the purposes of immigration sponsorship. Since then, several thousand queer binational couples have secured common residency privileges through the terms of this recognition. 3 Well over 25 percent of these couples have been comprised of at least one individual holding US citizenship (CIC 2008). As of 2006, there were an estimated 35,800 binational queer couples living without relationship recognition in the United States (Fagan 2009: 2). This differential in state recognition of same-sex binational relationships for immigration sponsorship certainly represents a significant “border” between US and Canadian social policy. In 2005, immigration scholars Audrey Kobayashi and Brian Ray (2005: 13) suggested that “[t]he situation with regard to same-sex partners and immigration could not be more different than that which presently exists in the United States.” Over the last several years, despite the efforts of US national lobby group Immigration Equality, this cleavage remains much the same, and has had the effect of positioning Canada as a relatively progressive, tolerant, and even welcoming destination for queer bi-national couples in Fortress North America and beyond. Indeed, as Immigration Equality continues to press Congress for immigration reform (with an increasing reliance on pushing for federal same-sex marriage recognition as a strategy to gain immigration recognition), their website directs couples living in impossible or unlivable situations in the United States to resources available to assist them in making northerly migrations to Canada. 4
