EDGE on the Net

Federal authorities have ordered Rockville, Md., resident Edwin Echegoyen to surrender his partner Rodrigo Martinez for deportation on Wednesday, March 9. Martinez, who came to the United States from El Salvador on a tourist visa in 2003, fears he will suffer anti-gay persecution in his homeland.

While most couples celebrated Valentine’s Day over toasts of champagne, Anton Tanumihardja faced the very real possibility Immigration and Customs Enforcement would deport him to his native Indonesia by the end of the day.

For those LGBT individuals seeking political asylum in the United States, the road may prove to be an ardous one. In fact, it may even more difficult today. EDGE’s Joe Erbentraut offers this report.

When Ruth Garcia’s twins are born in two months, they’ll have all the rights of U.S. citizens. They and their six brothers and sisters will be able to vote, apply for federal student loans and even run for president.

La Raza, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign are among the more than two dozen groups that have expressed their support of a boycott over Arizona’s controversial immigration law, but at least one local organization maintains this action would harm the state’s LGBT-owned businesses.

Immigration to rich countries dropped during the global economic crisis, reversing five years of annual increases as the demand for labor fell, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Monday.

An estimated 35,000 same-sex couples involve an American citizen and a person of a different nationality. Unlike heterosexual couples, bi-national same-sex families are not provided for under U.S. immigration law, meaning that they face long periods of separation.

Los Angeles County on Tuesday became the latest government body to boycott Arizona to protest the state’s tough new law targeting illegal immigration.

Even during the recession, foreign workers harvested vegetables, milked cows and picked apples on many U.S. farms, doing work that farmers say Americans don’t want to do.

South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham is the only member of the GOP who has joined Democrats in tackling the latest attempt at immigration reform, which seems to have made him a target for a far-right group that has now accused him of being gay--and vulnerable to political blackmail.