Out4Immigration Joins National Day of Action for Comprehensive Immigration Reform in San Francisco

by Amos Lim

The San Francisco Bay Coalition for Immigrant Justice organized a day of action to coincide with the National Day of Action for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. About 1000 people showed up in front of Senator Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco office at One Post Street to march to the Federal Building in the Civic Center for a rally.

Before the march started, a small group of people went into Sen. Feinstein's office for a meeting to urge her to be a champion for Comprehensive Immigration Reform that is humane and LGBT-inclusive. That group included two of our volunteers Kathy Drasky and Viki Forrest who represented same-sex binational couples.

Before the march started, Out4Immigration distributed rainbow flags and stickers, which were very popular. As we marched down Market Street, it was wonderful to see our rainbow flags flying high in the crowd.

It was also really great to see signs in Chinese advocating for an LGBT-inclusive immigration reform and advocating for LGBT families! Here are some photos from the march. Be sure to scroll all the way to the end to see the speech by our volunteer Gina Caprio. It is amazing!



Many thanks goes to Chinese for Affirmative Action, Asian Law Caucus, and ASPIRE (API DREAMers) for producing the signs in Mandarin that said "Immigration Reform Must Includes Same-Sex Couples".

Many thanks also go to Kathy and Viki for attending the meeting with Sen. Feinstein's office, Gina for speaking at the rally and Erik Schnabel for being the lead in the organizing team for the day's event.

In spite of hearing reports that we will be left out of the Senate's CIR bill, let's not give up just yet. We have many allies, supporters and friends that have our backs. Call your Senators at (202) 224-3121. It doesn't matter if they are part of the Senate's Gang of 8 or not. All Senators who have constituents that are in same-sex binational relationships - or know someone who is part of an LGBT-immigrant family - need to hear from us!