Kelly Easter wanted to help. Like many Americans, she watched the news in 2020 in dismay at the conditions awaiting unaccompanied migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border. Easter, a 47-year-old realtor, lives alone in her two bedroom apartment in Nashville, Tenn. “I have the resources. I thought, ‘Why not? Let me help,’” she tells TIME.
In her research, Easter came across the Unaccompanied Children Program, a program through which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) places migrant children into temporary foster care until they can be united with vetted sponsors in the United States. Easter says she asked HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement how to get involved and was directed to Bethany Christian Services, a faith-based nonprofit that runs the arm of the program in her area. Easter says she first contacted Bethany in September 2020, and was encouraged to apply.
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Read more: How Foster Families Are Stepping Up to House Unaccompanied Children Arriving at the U.S.-Mexico Border
But Easter, who is a lesbian, started to worry when she read online that Bethany had refused to work with LGBTQ parents in the past. (Bethany announced on March 1, 2021, that it would begin providing services to LGBTQ parents nationwide.) She reached back out to ask for guidance; after a year of back-and-forth, Easter says she was told by Bethany on Aug. 12, 2021 that she could not apply to the unaccompanied child program in their East Nashville office because of her sexual orientation. “I literally cried,” Easter tells TIME. “Just to be turned down because of who I am, it was really surreal.”
On Oct. 13, Easter filed a federal lawsuit against HHS, along with specific HHS officials and programs, with the assistance of LGBTQ civil rights group Lambda Legal and the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. Easter alleges that, by funding and administering a federal program through an organization that discriminates based on sexual…
Source : time
