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DHS REFUSES
ASYLUM TO GUINEAN TEEN DESPITE APPEALS
FROM NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS AND MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Almost
40 organizations have banded together to urge the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) to grant immediate asylum
to Malik Jarno. Jarno is a teenage orphan from Guinea
with mental retardation. Jarno
fled to the United States
to avoid persecution in his home country where his father
was imprisoned and killed by the government. Despite
overwhelming evidence that Jarno is likely to be persecuted
if returned to Guinea
and needs the protection of the laws designed for just
this purpose, the DHS refuses to stipulate to immediate
political asylum for him.
The
groups supporting Jarno submitted a letter today urging
immigration officials to concede to asylum. Denise
Gilman, Director of Immigrant and Refugee Rights at
the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and
Urban Affairs, one of the groups coordinating the appeal,
said, “Malik's case is not complicated - it involves
a young, vulnerable orphan who fled his home country
fearing for his life.” The letter submitted today is
one more call for relief for Jarno following on numerous
other letters and petitions in his support. Those who
have already interceded on behalf of Jarno include seventy
members of Congress from the Congressional Refugee,
Human Rights and Black Caucuses; Republican and Democratic
Senators; numerous non-governmental organizations, including
Amnesty International, Human Rights First (previously
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and the NAACP.
Jarno
arrived in the United States
at age 16 in 2001, seeking the protections of our government
as a political refugee. But the system failed him.
Before Jarno found pro bono counsel to assist him, immigration
officials lost his file and, as a result, allowed Jarno
to languish in jail for eight months without seeing
an immigration judge. Jarno was interviewed
by United States
government officials without notice or presence of counsel,
despite his age and mental capacity. In their overzealous
pursuit of an effort to discredit Jarno, officials improperly
revealed information from his asylum claim to the Guinean
government and increased risks that he would face if
returned to his home country. Jarno was held in adult
jails and prisons for almost three years before he was
finally released on December 23, 2003 as a result of
the direct intervention of DHS Under
Secretary Asa Hutchinson. But DHS trial attorneys still
seek to return Jarno to Guinea.
The
evidence establishing beyond a doubt Malik's eligibility
for asylum includes: 1) written testimony by a US Agency
for International Development agent stationed in Guinea
attesting to the death of Malik's father and destruction
of his home; 2) expert opinions attesting to the persecution
that an orphan with mental retardation would suffer
in Guinea; 3) written testimony from the wife of a Guinean
political leader confirming that Jarno's father was
a religious and civic leader who was imprisoned and
killed by the Guinean government; and 4) evidence that
the Embassy of Guinea is hostile to Jarno and that the
government of Guinea will seek to punish him upon return.
Given the evidence and the injustice Jarno has already
suffered, Jarno should be granted asylum as expeditiously
as possible.
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