Bay Area Reporter Quotes Ranesh Ramanathan on Support for LGBTQ Afghan Refugees
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San Francisco LGTBQ publication The Bay Area Reporter has quoted Akin Gump special situations and private credit practice co-head Ranesh Ramanathan for its article “Out in the World: LGBTQ asylum and refugee organizations get a boost.”
The article reports that LGBTQ asylum and refugee organizations have received hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch initiatives helping “queer and gender-nonconforming asylum seekers and refugees” even as conditions around the world create even more displaced people.
Ramanathan is noted, along with his husband, who serves as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, as having provided the seed grant for Immigration Equality’s new Build Out program, focusing on LGBTQ refugee resettlement. Both men previously served on Immigration Equality’s board.
“There's going to be real pain felt around the world," said Ramanathan, "I think we're actually going to see immigration—legal, refugee, asylee, and undocumented—all of it's going to go up just as people try to find safer places to be.”
The article covers Akin Gump’s pro bono work on behalf of Immigration Equality—the firm has, to date, donated more than $4.2 million in pro bono hours to the organization—and discusses Ramanathan’s own experience with immigration challenges, having spent six years stateless when Singapore revoked his citizenship while he was in college in the U.S. According to Ramanathan, the article writes, in 1998, he became one of the first 10 people granted political asylum in the U.S. based on sexual orientation.
To read the full article, click here. To learn more about the Ramanathans’ ongoing support of Immigration Equality, click here.
