Christine and Jessica
Christine (U.S.) & Jessica (Luxembourg)
This story is located at:
http://www.out4immigration.org/immigration/page.html?=&cid=1123
I was introduced to Christine over the internet by a mutual friend of ours in the summer of 2001. At the time I was living on my own in Europe, after recently having come out to my family. Under these circumstances, what I needed most was someone who could understand what I was going through, someone who would listen, someone to support me. I remember clearly the first time I ever heard Christine’s voice. It was past three o’clock at night when my mother rushed me out of bed, telling me I had a long distance phone call from the United States. We didn’t get to talk very much that night, as my mother was standing by keeping a watchful eye on me. And yet the sound of Christine’s voice was enough to keep me awake the rest of the night.
A couple of months and several hundred minutes of late night phone conversation later, we were in love. Despite our busy schedules we found time to plan to meet half way, in New York City, for Christmas. We were lost in dreams about ice-skating and Christmas shopping together when 9-11 happened. Although I knew that Christine was in California, far away from all danger, I was filled with worries for her well-being. So I invented a story about a relative needing my instant help in the United States and took the first flight available to LAX.
Since then, Christine and I have lived together, have adopted three cats and have become every bit as committed as a married couple. I enrolled in law school, and we bought a house together.
The safe little world we had created for each other in Christine’s country, the United States, fell apart when the renewal of my student visa application was denied.
We were forced to leave the U.S., which for Christine meant giving up her successful career in law enforcement.
Although we found a country that welcomed us, Christine should not have been forced to leave her country, the land whose motto is “justice for all.” Do politicians in the U.S. even understand how traumatizing such move can be? Leaving everything behind and start-ing your life all over again just because your own country denies you the simple right to live there with your foreign partner who happens to be of the same sex?
Christine still gets extremely bitter when this issue comes up. This is why she had asked me to write our story.
This story is located at:
http://www.out4immigration.org
LGBT IMMIGRATION STORIES 
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