Queer migration and the search for proof

Question 1

Lewis: What is queer liberalism?

Answer 1

A political framework that seeks to include LGBTQ+ individuals into existing heteronormative structures without challenging broader systems of inequality, such as race, class, and nationalism

Question 2

Lewis: How does Maple Palm reinforce neoliberal privacy norms in its portrayal of same-sex immigration rights and why is it bad?

Answer 2

The movie centers rights around privacy and family, thereby limiting LGBTQ+ activism to the private sphere. This reinforces neoliberal divisions of state/family and public/private

Question 3

Lewis: How does Maple Palm exclude certain queer immigrants?

Answer 3

It marginalizes those who do not fit into US norms of family life, such as those who reject romantic monogamy, femininity or lack financiel resources to support a partner

Question 4

Lewis: What kind of lesbian immgrant does Maple Palm depict, and why is this bad?

Answer 4

A white, feminine, financially secure lesbian who is not a refugee, thereby depoliticizing lesbian immigrant rights by presenting a version of “acceptable” homosexuality open to the mainstream

Question 5

Lewis: What alternative does she propose for representing and legislating queer immigration rights?

Answer 5

Media and policies that challenge neoliberal norms of privacy and recognize diverse intimate and affective ties, granting individuals freedom to prioritize the relationships most meaningful to them. Need to stop rewarding “marriage-like” relationships above all other modes of attachment

Question 6

Lewis: What is the problem with how campaigns like Uniting American Families Act frame same-sex immigration rights?

Answer 6

They focus on respectable, white, middle-class couples and focus on right to privacy, marginalizing queer immigrants who do not fit this mold

Question 7

Lewis: How does Maple Palm depict surveillance and state power?

Answer 7

The film links post-9/11 security practices to the intimate policing of lesbian bodies and relationships

Question 8

Vogler: What are the three common critiques of sexual identity in asylum laws that Vogler seeks to reevaluate?

Answer 8

1. The law views sexuality as immutable, as the definition of a social group describes membership as based on “immutable characteristic”
2. The law uses and forces queer immigrants into Western identity categories and relies on stereotypes
3. The law prioritizes and explicitly protects identity, not conduct

Question 9

Vogler: What does Vogler argue about those 3 classic critiques of sexual identity in asylum?

Answer 9

That while they are accurate in particular movements and situations, the law now shows more flexibiltiy

Question 10

What 2 things must a queer asylum applicant prove?

Answer 10

1. Their sexual identity as the basis for membership in a particular social group (1 of 5 categories of asylum)
2. Either past persecution or well-founded fear of future persecution on account of that identity (emotional, psychological, or physical)

Question 11

Vogler: What does Vogler find regarding criticism 1: immutable sexuality

Answer 11

The law is more flexible than many critics assume

Sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersexuality can both be presented as immutable or fundamental, meaning something you can change but is a trait you should not be compelled to change

However, lawyers often rely on immutability as it makes as more pragmatic approach

Question 12

Vogler: What does Vogler find regarding criticism 2: Western stereotypes?

Answer 12

Reliance on stereotypes and Western identity categories has decreased over time, such as recognition of other labels than gay/lesbian and other ways to be visibly gay

Cases where judges inappropriately use stereotypes do happen, but are overturned by appellate courts

Lawyers may impose labels on clients to make them more “legible” to the court, but would still help a claimant who did not want this

Question 13

Vogler: What does Vogler find regarding criticism 3: protecting identity over conduct?

Answer 13

The status/conduct distinction has collapse, so that petitioners can make a claim based on either -> expanded possible queer asylum claims

Question 14

Vogler: What are two types of asylum processes?

Answer 14

1. Affirmative asylum: You arrive in US as recorded, legal immigrant and apply for asylum at immigration office
2. Defensive application: If undocumented or denied affirmative asylum, this is last resort - asylum or kicked out

Question 15

Vogler: Where does Vogler stand regarding the necessity of classification in asylum?

Answer 15

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. The law is flexible enough, so no need to change completely

Question 16

Lee: Why can we not say that queer and trans migrations to Canada from the Global South are the result of simple acts of homophobic and transphobic violence by barbaric and uncivilized cultures?

Answer 16

Because this ignores and erases the violent forgetting of the histories of colonial violence -> the criminalization of sexual and gender transgression in the Global South can be traced back to colonial criminalization laws

Thus it was the colonial making of the Global South that reinforced both patriarchal cisheteronormativty and also shaped mass refugee movements

Question 17

Lee: What purpose did criminalization laws of homosexuals and trans people serve?

Answer 17

It enforced local patriarchies, stigmatized alternative sexualities, and served as instruments of imperial control over colonized people -> completely reorganizing many Indigenous soceities

Question 18

Lee: Why did many colonized states keep or tighten colonial laws against homosexuality/transness? (3)

Answer 18

To prove that they were able to rule a country by making the laws your own and enforcing them

Separating themselves from the previous colonizer, associating queerness with Westernness

As the colonized, you have been deemed the perverse other -> to prove that you are not (you are normal), you must find someone else who is perverse

Question 19

Lee: What was the role of capitalism after colonization officially ended?

Answer 19

It served as a way to recolonize, meaning that colonization never really ended

Question 20

Lee: What role does visa eligiblity requirements play in migration?

Answer 20

Visa eligibilities - such as invitation from white/Western citizen/organization and financial requirements - are fundamental to blocking migrants from entering white/Western nation-states

Question 21

Lee: Why is Canada and other Western states not merely a safe haven for LGBTQ+ refugees?

Answer 21

Because visa/permit eligibility excludes the migrants who really need to migrate (poor/working class queer and trans people), and this narrative obscures the realities of thousands of people who are refused entry and thus can never make use of their “progressive” asylum laws. Is merely a homo-nationalist narrative

Question 22

Lee: What role does blackness play in migration?

Answer 22

Anti-blackness underpins white/Western empires and border regimes, resulting in black people being constantly “out of place”

Question 23

Lee: What are residual intimacies?

Answer 23

Leftover structures of colonialism that continue today but are often forgotten, such as colonial criminalization laws, the Global South seen as anti-queer and anti-trans etc. -> Since Western powers have forgotten that they caused there, they criticize them

Question 24

Lee: What underpins border regimes?

Answer 24

Anti-blackness/racism (systematic preference for white bodies, i.e., from EU etc.)

Class (sufficient funds, visa application fees)

Question 25

What is the safe country of origin list?

Answer 25

List of countries where asylum applications can automatically be rejected, as it assumes the same level of protection as here