Thread: Lesbian illegal wants asylum!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/30/uganda ... index.html

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Olivia Nabulwala says her family in Uganda was so angry and ashamed to learn she was a lesbian that her relatives hurled insults at her, pummeled her and, finally, stripped her and held her down while a stranger raped her.

"I hated myself from that day," she said in a sworn statement. "I disliked my family for subjecting me to such torture, and yet they felt this was a good punishment for me."

Now, in a case that illuminates a relatively unexplored area of U.S. immigration law, the African immigrant is asking for asylum in the U.S. on the grounds she was persecuted over her sexual orientation. A federal appeals court ruling last week has raised her hopes of success.

Persecution based on sexual orientation has been grounds for asylum in the U.S. since the 1990s, but such cases are still rare. Most involve gay men persecuted by their government. There are few cases involving women, who are more likely to be persecuted by family members, said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a gay rights group that represents immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it does not systematically track the number of asylum claims based on sexual orientation. Most immigration cases are dispensed without a published opinion.

"That's why we're so excited about this case," Tiven said. "A published opinion gives it greater weight, makes it citable."

Immigration Equality, based in New York, said that last year it won 18 asylum cases for gay men and transgender women from the Congo, Algeria, Jamaica, Russia, Egypt, Peru, Bangladesh, Venezuela and Colombia. It said it lost two such asylum cases.

Among some recent cases: A man who said he was beaten by Mexican police and threatened because he is gay won asylum in January. Another Mexican man was granted asylum in a 2000 appeals court ruling that extended protection to transvestites.

To qualify for asylum, applicants must demonstrate past persecution or well-founded fear of future persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group, which now includes homosexuals. Asylum seekers must also show, among other things, that their government was unable or unwilling to protect them.

In 1990, a gay Cuban who said he was abused by government officials in his homeland won asylum in the first significant ruling of its kind in the U.S. That ruling became the basis for then-Attorney General Janet Reno's 1994 order allowing gays from other countries to seek asylum for persecution based on sexual orientation.

"It is a relatively new area of asylum law; there's not a lot of bricks in the wall as to how these cases get played out," Tiven said. "But here's a high-level court, citing a reasonable and relevant application of government passivity."

"For women, it's developed quite slowly," she added. "Around the world, women face harm, often severe harm, from the nearest and not so dearest."

In an affidavit in support of her application for asylum, Nabulwala, who is in her late 20s, says being gay is shameful in African culture and illegal in Uganda, and that her family expelled her from the clan.

The Associated Press normally withholds the names of people who claim to be victims of sexual assault, but Nabulwala agreed through her lawyer to allow her name to be used.

In her affidavit, Nabulwala says she realized she was a lesbian while attending an all-girls Christian boarding school in Kampala. In her senior year, 1994, after the local newspaper wrote a story about lesbian relationships at her high school, and her parents confronted her, Nabulwala admitted she was gay.

She says her admission was a "big blow" to her father, who angrily told her she must end it or she "could no longer be his child." Later, she says, she was brought to a family meeting, where insults were hurled at her and an aunt "beat me so hard with clenched fists and said it would help bring me back to my senses."

In 2001, Nabulwala, by then in college, says she was called to another family meeting after relatives learned she was still involved in a lesbian relationship.

"During this meeting, my Dad said so many unpleasant and hurtful words to me," she says. "He was so angry that he reached out to grab my neck to strangle me. He stated he was going to kill me because I was an embarrassment to him, our family, as well as the entire clan."

She says two aunts dragged her out of the meeting into her room, where a young man was waiting.

"I was forced to have sex with a total stranger, which was very nasty, while my aunts watched in laughter," she says. "Afterwards, they all left me lying there in a lot of pain."

Three months later, she entered the U.S. on a visitor visa, overstayed, then fought deportation by asserting a right to asylum.

An immigration judge in Minnesota, where she now lives, said he did not doubt Nabulwala had suffered in Uganda because of her sexual orientation. But he ruled that the rape was a "private family mistreatment," and not sponsored or authorized by the government.

However, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge used the wrong legal standard, and ordered the case sent back for further proceedings on whether the Ugandan government was unwilling or unable to control the abuse, as Nabulwala contends.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and punishable by one to four years in prison. But a police spokeswoman, Alice Nakoba, said no one has ever been convicted. She defended her country's treatment of gays, saying that Ugandans seeking asylum in developed countries exaggerate.

Nabulwala is "extremely happy" about the March 21 ruling, said her attorney, Eric Dorkin. Dorkin would not allow her to be interviewed or photographed, citing concerns about her safety and privacy.

If Nabulwala is unsuccessful, she will be deported.

"She's afraid to go back," Immigration Equality legal director Victoria Neilson said. "There's no protection in Uganda for gay people."

Ok. this is going too far!

Three months later, she entered the U.S. on a visitor visa, overstayed, then fought deportation by asserting a right to asylum.

No mention of this until she was going to be deported. She should have applied for asylum when she landed on US soil and her visa was valid, but no she never had any intention of filing for asylum until now and it is a last ditch effort to stay in this country. This is a load of crap, another illegal alien looking for liberals to feel sorry for her so she can get asylum.

Last time I checked sexual orientation wasn’t at all a good reason for asylum, visa overstay was a good reason for deportation

This is just my personal belief
(Mod Edit)


(Mod Edit)

(Mod Edit)

Ship her back,
Prison would do her some Good.

Right on greatamerican!

WE have enough of our own kooks, we don't need other countries kooks!

Why is it this country is taking all the people other countries don't want? Is there really supposed to be some benefit to doing that other than cheap labor? I sure don't see it

I really think our politicians have become so weak, that they fear foreign countries saying something, if we have our immigration laws enforced.

They are all girly men!

Originally Posted by GREGAGREATAMERICAN

Last time I checked sexual orientation wasn’t at all a good reason for asylum, visa overstay was a good reason for deportation

This is just my personal belief
(Mod Edit)


(Mod Edit)

(Mod Edit)

Ship her back,
Prison would do her some Good.

LOL
ROTF


Moosetracks, Thanks for the story
Cooperation not conformism to any other orientation then the one God gives us.
I have to be done in this thread, but please believe me, I dont want to be.
I have some realy Good points, but I dont feel like they could be heard without someone finding them to be offencive. But there is always email.

O blessèd home where man and wife
Together lead a godly life
By deeds their faith confessing!
There many a happy day is spent,
There Jesus gladly will consent
To tarry with His blessing.

If they have given Him their heart,
The place of honor set apart
For Him each night and morrow,
Then He the storms of life will calm,
Will bring for every wound a balm,
And change to joy their sorrow.

And if their home be dark and drear,
The cruse be empty, hunger near,
All hope within them dying,
Let them despair not in distress;
Lo, Christ is there the bread to bless,
The fragments multiplying.

O Lord, we come before Thy face;
In every home bestow Thy grace
On children, father, mother,
Relieve their wants, their burdens ease,
Let them together dwell in peace
And love to one another.