38 Gay City News Impact Awards 2020
HONOREE
AARON C. MORRIS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IMMIGRATION EQUALITY
Aaron C. Morris is the executive director of Immigration Equality, the
nation’s premier immigrant rights group serving LGBTQ people as well
as those living with HIV.
Immigration Equality’s work includes direct legal services to immigrants,
especially those from the more than 80 countries where it is either a crime
or gravely unsafe to be LGBTQ or HIV-positive. Between the dangers of
immigration detention facilities and the complexity of the nation’s asylum
process, asylum seekers may face hardships and are unlikely to ultimately
be successful without representation by knowledgeable counsel.
Immigration Equality advances a policy agenda in coalition with other immigrant rights advocates, focusing on educating
lawmakers and other policy decision makers on the specifi c dangers facing LGBTQ and HIV-positive people who have come
to the US from their homeland. The organization’s clients can often be the most effective spokespeople in making the case
for reform.
Immigration Equality also engages in impact litigation on behalf of clients, seeking to challenge discriminatory practices
in a manner that can benefi t other asylum seekers in similar situations.
Prior to becoming Immigration Equality’s executive director, Aaron led its law and policy programs, where he oversaw
the group’s legal services, impact litigation, policy advocacy, and lobbying efforts. He fi rst joined Immigration Equality as a
Pride Law Fellow in the summer of 2004. After earning his law degree, Aaron volunteered with the organization whenever
he could and joined full time as a staff attorney in 2008.
In 2015, Aaron made oral arguments as amicus counsel before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Godoy-Ramirez
v. Holder. In that case, he argued that the immigration judge hearing a transgender Mexican woman’s asylum case
fundamentally misunderstood the dangers she faced because the judge concluded that the ability of same-sex couples to
marry in Mexico City meant that trans people did not face persecution. The Ninth Circuit ordered the Board of Immigration
Appeals to reconsider the asylum application in a ruling that established a precedent for the nine states that make up the
circuit.
Aaron is a graduate of American University’s Washington College of Law and earned his bachelor’s degree at the
University of Oklahoma.
Before joining Immigration Equality, he was an immigration staff attorney in the Offi ce of Legal Affairs of the New Yorkbased
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Aaron is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the LGBT Bar Association. In 2014, the LGBT
Bar Association named him as one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40.
In 2017, Aaron was honored with the Peter M. Cicchinio Award from American University’s Washington College of Law
for Outstanding Advocacy in the Public Interest. Cicchinio, who taught law at American University, founded the Gay and
Lesbian Youth Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York and died in 2000.