A Mother’s Nightmare: A Senegalese Woman Struggles to Save Her Daughters

Having survived female genital mutilation when she was three years old in Senegal, Fatoumata does not want her four U.S.-born daughters to face the same violence. But as an undocumented immigrant at risk of deportation, the past Fatoumata fought to leave behind might be catching up to her children.

Fatoumata, who requested that her last name be withheld, is fighting her case in U.S. immigration courts. If her application for political asylum is denied, then she faces the unenviable dilemma of either separating from her children, who have U.S. citizenship, or moving them back to Senegal where her family is demanding her daughters undergo the traditional genital cutting.

Read More At The Indypendent

Gay Filipino gets asylum in historic US case

A gay Filipino was granted political asylum in an historic US case.

Because Philip Belarmino, 43, was subjected to rapes and repeated sexual harassments as a boy and because Philippine police are “known to be corrupt” and the Philippine government is “unable to curtail their corruption,” a San Francisco immigration judge ruled on May 21, 2009 that Belarmino was entitled to political asylum in the US.

Read More At Global Nation

Kenyan Forces Accused of Abusing Refugees

US Criticised Over Immigrant Rights

Amnesty International has said tens of thousands of people are being held in US immigration jails without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detentions are warranted. About 30,000 immigrants are held on an average day, the rights group said in a report released on Wednesday, triple the number in custody a decade ago.

"America should be outraged by the scale of human rights abuses occurring within its own borders," said Larry Cox, director of Amnesty International USA.
Amnesty said more than 300,000 people are detained by US immigration officials each year, including asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, legal permanent residents and the parents of US citizens.

"The United States has long been a country of immigrants, and whether they have been here five years or five generations, their human rights are to be respected."

Read More At Al Jazeera

A Search For Asylum And Peace Of Mind

Eduardo's mind is a puzzle: Since he fled a civil war in his native Guatemala more than a decade ago, he has been trying to piece it back together.

Although the war ended with a peace treaty in 1996, the battle still rages inside him. He has nightmares from a childhood witnessing government soldiers torturing and killing relatives and others in his Mayan tribe.

"I am always nervous. I do not have many friends, and I never open the door when I am alone. I think they are coming for me," said Eduardo, who is 27 and does not want his full name used because he is awaiting a response on his asylum claim.

Read More At Boston.com

Sent back by Britain. Executed in Darfur.

Failed asylum-seeker followed home from airport and shot by Sudan security officials.

A failed asylum-seeker who returned to Darfur under a government repatriation scheme has been murdered by Sudanese security officers after they followed him home from the airport in Khartoum, The Independent has learnt.

Adam Osman Mohammed, 32, was gunned down in his home in front of his wife and four-year-old son just days after arriving in his village in south Darfur.

The case is to be used by asylum campaigners to counter Home Office attempts to lift the ban on the removal and deportation to Sudan of failed asylum-seekers. Next month, government lawyers are expected to go to court to argue that it is safe to return as many as 3,000 people to Khartoum.

Read More At the Independent