Op-Ed: Barney Frank Is Right, Immigration Reform Must Move Forward
Every day we fail to reform our broken immigration system, 1,100 families are torn apart because Americans are not afforded the right to sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration.
Unfortunately, an amendment to the Senate immigration bill that would have granted this right to binational same-sex couples received significant backlash from Republican members of Congress and was stripped from the legislation.
Despite this setback, former Congressman Barney Frank is right that immigration reform must move forward — and for more reasons than he stated.
Why? Because the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community is more than binational same-sex couples. We are families and individuals, professionals and students, adults and children, neighbors and friends. We are people. And for all Americans, including the LGBTQ community, much remains at stake in the immigration bill.
Through partnerships with extraordinary advocates such as the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association and the Queer Asian Pacific-Islander Alliance, we have seen and heard stories from our extensive LGBTQ family that demonstrate how urgently we need immigration reform.
We know from these stories that we are asylum seekers, who have come to America to seek refuge from persecution, violence and death merely because of our sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
We are DREAMers – immigrants who were brought here at a young age and have chosen to pursue higher education or military service – seeking the opportunity to realize the promise of the only country we’ve ever known.
We are detainees who face harsh and inhumane treatment, such as extended solitary confinement, just because of who we are.
We are 267,000 of the 11 million undocumented immigrants that urgently need comprehensive immigration reform.
It is because of these stories that we stand with all immigrants in fighting for this bill’s passage, even as we continue to work to improve it.
The current Senate reform proposal addresses many issues that will particularly benefit LGBTQ people, such as eliminating the one-year bar on applying for asylum, providing protections for DREAMers, and improving conditions for people held in detention facilities.
Beyond these advances, there is more room for improvement. We will not give up trying to get protections for binational same-sex couples. We must also uphold our commitment to ensuring that this legislation provides a pathway to citizenship, positions family unity at the heart of immigration law and policy, ends unjust detentions and deportations, maintains labor and employment rights, and promotes a dignified quality of life for border communities by agencies honoring civil and human rights protections. There is much left that is worth fighting for in immigration reform.
We agree with Barney Frank that it is unconscionable that lawmakers committed to equality, commonsense and humane immigration policy were forced to make a false choice between protecting the rights of same-sex binational couples and passing comprehensive immigration reform.
Yet, we remain committed to passing inclusive immigration reform, creating the most accessible pathway to citizenship possible, and opposing draconian amendments that would make immigrants permanent second-class citizens. This legislation is long overdue and a necessary step forward for all of us.
This op-ed by Kara S. Suffredini was originally published at The Hill.
Kara S. Suffredini is the executive director of MassEquality and sits on the board of the Equality Federation – a national nonprofit organization.
Suffredini brings more than a decade of leadership in the LGBTQ movement to her role as the Executive Director of MassEquality. Since taking the helm in 2010, Suffredini has overseen a number of historic victories, including securing Senator Scott Brown’s game-changing vote in favor of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†repeal, winning statewide transgender nondiscrimination protections, and securing creation of the nation’s first statewide commission on youth homelessness. Under her direction, MassEquality was named a Nonprofit Excellence Award Finalist by the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network in 2012 and ranked 4th of 103 high-impact local LGBTQ nonprofits nationally by Philanthropedia in 2013.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
