What it's Like to be an LGBT Asylum Seeker

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More than 76 countries around the world criminalize people for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or LGBT. In some countries, LGBT people are even sentenced to death. But when LGBT immigrants try to escape this persecution by coming to the United States, many suffer a new trauma in Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, detention. DHS can release LGBT immigrants under community supervision, but nearly 70 percent of the time, the agency elects to keep them detained. Khayal, a gay man from a country in the former Soviet Union, shares his story of the trauma of being gay and seeking asylum in the United States.