Two Immigrants, Two Standards
By Stacy Caplow and Lauren Kosseff
Saturday, February 11, 2006; Page A19
We recently learned that U.S. immigration policy is, in fact, capable of fast action and flexibility. It just depends on who the immigrant is.
In December Congress speedily passed special immigration legislation to benefit just one person: an ice dancer. As a Canadian, she couldn't join the 2006 U.S. Olympics team.
But a law was written that lasted exactly two days, long enough for her to be fast-tracked for citizenship and sent to compete for the United States. Around the same time,
we at the Safe Harbor Project at Brooklyn Law School received notice that the U.S. immigration system had denied entry to Teresa, a 14-year-old African girl who has been stranded as a refugee in Guinea almost all her life. She is trying to join her adoptive mother, Momara (no real names are used here, as is generally practiced with asylum),
a refugee from Sierra Leone who was granted asylum in the United States. But in this girl's case, there is no fast track, only the rigid application of a procedural rule.Teresa's harrowing story began when she was born in the bush, where everyone from her town had fled to escape rampaging rebel forces threatening to kill them. Her birth mother died giving birth to her. Without a second thought, Momara scooped up the infant and from that moment on considered Teresa her own. She, Teresa and her other young children went to a refugee camp and remained there until the rebel forces struck again, robbing the refugees and stabbing Momara. Somehow the family made its way to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, but they were still not safe. Rebels beheaded Momara's husband before their eyes, gang-raped and beat Momara, and stabbed her sons. Miraculously, they escaped and, without husband and father, fled to Guinea.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001715.html