I stumbled upon this article about a male gay Dominican who seeked asylum in the US based on persecution due to this sexual orientation.
From the article:
Here is my question, are gay Dominicans trully that persecuted? It is not my experience (which is not to say that it may not have happened to this particular person), but the cynic me just thinks that it was a way to stay in the US after the fact (the fact been that he overstayed his visa). Of course I could be wrong and am willing to be educated.
Mod note: Do not even try to hijack this thread, please keep your opinion on homosexuality to yourself, that is not what this thread is about.
From the article:
He was later granted asylum by US authorities.In 1994 Villalona-Perez was employed at a garment company in his hometown of Bani - a job at which he had been physically assaulted by co-workers on two occasions and ridiculed in front of other employees "for being a woman," according to court documents. He was sent to New York on a temporary work visa for an employee training and used the days before the training began to visit relatives in Boston. It was here that Villalona-Perez realized he could have a better life in the United States than in his native country; he decided to stay.
Less than a year later he was arrested by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents and deportation proceedings were initiated immediately. It wasn't until Villalona-Perez enlisted the aid of the Political Asylum / Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project, a pro bono immigration organization that represents low-income asylum-seekers in the United States, that he learned that he could apply for asylum based on sexual orientation.
Here is my question, are gay Dominicans trully that persecuted? It is not my experience (which is not to say that it may not have happened to this particular person), but the cynic me just thinks that it was a way to stay in the US after the fact (the fact been that he overstayed his visa). Of course I could be wrong and am willing to be educated.
Mod note: Do not even try to hijack this thread, please keep your opinion on homosexuality to yourself, that is not what this thread is about.