Columbine exchange student from Afghanistan improved his asylum chances

U.S. policies mean his chances are far better in Canada

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, May 12, 2008

When a 17-year-old Afghan high school student recently abandoned Colorado for Canada in a bid for asylum, he dramatically raised his chances for staying in North America.

The likelihood of winning asylum in the U.S. for Mesbah Habibi or any other immigrant is 19 percent, according to a Syracuse University study.

In Canada, it's 40 percent to 45 percent for all nationalities, and 69 percent for Afghans.

Habibi follows 8,188 people who left the U.S. to request asylum in Canada last year, according to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board.

In fact, Habibi's decision is "an absolutely everyday occurrence," said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Habibi spent the school year at Columbine High School, participating in track and field and working on the student newspaper. He was due to return home in June to Herat, in western Afghanistan. That city has recently seen medical and factory workers go on strike to protest a rise in kidnappings and terrorism.

The young man disappeared from an out-of-state airport after a meeting with other exchange students. The next day he e-mailed friends and his host family to say he was fine and in Canada. Neither he nor his host family responded to requests for interviews.

But winning permission to stay in the U.S. would have been tough.

The U.S. deports asylum seekers so often that a Canadian judge has ruled that the U.S. is not safe for refugees, and therefore, asylum seekers entering from the U.S. must be allowed into Canada.

In winning that ruling, the Canadian Council for Refugees argued that "the United States, a nation founded by people fleeing repression, (has turned) into a country of bureaucratic walls and mazes where victims are sent back to their tormentors or thrown into U.S. jails alongside criminals pending a judgment on asylum."

The court's decision has been stayed pending appeal. But Habibi was allowed into Canada because he is from one of six exempt countries. Canada has a moratorium on rejecting refugees from those six, so Habibi enjoys another protection for now.

The exempt countries are Afghanistan, Iraq, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti and Zimbabwe.

Denver immigration attorney Jeff Joseph says the U.S. standard for asylum is very high. War is not a sufficient reason. Refugees must prove they were persecuted, or will be if they return. The grounds must be race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a social group. And this must have been "at the hands of the government" or people the government can't control, Joseph said.

Many refugees literally flee, and thus don't have proof of what happened to them, he said. So a Nigerian woman might be able to prove genital mutilation with a medical exam, but she does not have proof the government did it.

The number of refugees and asylum seekers welcomed by the U.S. has dropped from a peak of 170,000 in 1992 to 65,000 in 2006.

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

U.S. termed unsafe for refugees

Michael Phelan, a Canadian judge, ruled last year that the U.S. is not safe for refugees. The ruling, which was stayed pending appeal, was based on U.S practices such as:

* Jailing some people requesting asylum, including families with children.

* Deportation to countries that torture, including a case of an innocent Canadian deported from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured.

* Harsh treatment and secret detention of suspected terrorists and reliable reports of torture, in violation of the Convention on Torture.

* A ban on asylum for anyone who has given material support to terrorism - even if under coercion, such as paying extortion or ransom for a kidnapping.

Youth Exchange and Study Program

* What is it? A U.S. State Department program designed to let students learn about America and develop leadership skills to take home, and teach Americans about other countries.

* How many students are involved? 750 students from 32 countries have been involved, including many Muslim students who live with host families for up to a year in the U.S.

• May 13, 2008

  6:09 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  vudumom writes:

  Someone needs to get Mexico and other south of the border countries on Canada's list of exempt countries. Problem solved. Someone start getting the word out to illegals that Canada is the place to go. All they have to do is flood the country with 12 million people and their offspring, claim assylum and then maybe Canada won't be judging the U.S. as a bureaucratic maze.Don't forget to tell the refugees from south of the border to demand free services,Canadian's to start printing everything in spanish.Provide extra schooling to educate them.Allow them to have very large families all paid for with Canadian tax money,steal Canadian identities,drive without licenses and insurance,free housing, free 1st in line medical care and the best thing for Canada is they will do the work Canadian's won't do. I wonder how long it will take the Canadian courts and system to put up a bureaucratic wall and maze where (victims) are sent back to their tormentor's or thrown in jails alongside criminals, (not that they are criminals themselves)pending a judgement on assylum.

• May 13, 2008

  7:29 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  HolierThanThou writes:

  See above for an excellent example of the kind of cowardly immoral xenophobia that has put the United States off the list of freedom-loving sanctuaries for tormented and oppressed people.

  How long has it been since we invaded Afghanistan? What happened to the reconstruction of that country?

  Corporate robbery (see Halliburton and others) of tax-funded reconstruction wasn't invented in Iraq when our government found that over 9 billion dollars had gone missing before stopping the audits and firing the auditors. Afghanistan is in worse shape because reconstruction funding was never allocated to be sufficient in the first place.

  So, you have farmers growing opium poppies as a cash crop and drug lords running the country. Even the Taliban are using heroin to raise cash and regroup.

  The Canadians have more sense than we do. They have proven themselves to be the humanitarians that Americans used to be. That's all been erased by the fear and cowardice peddled every day by the conservative movement.

  If you voted for Bush and feel the urge to change the subject then you are the reason why visiting foreigners who have any sense and a need for asylum use our country as a stepping stone. You are the reason why their country is wreck because you support the complete incompetence and thievery of Bush and his business partners.

  Then you have the chutzpah to complain because the Canadians show us a sense of dignity, stand on the moral high ground, and make us look bad.

  Here's one last thing to ponder: the Canadians are not likely to put Mexico on that list because the Mexicans don't torture and imprison folks for no good reason near as much as we do.

• May 13, 2008

  8:02 a.m.

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  ToriEllis007 writes:

  Kudos to Canada.

• May 13, 2008

  8:06 a.m.

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  Fred writes:

  Holier wrote:
  Here's one last thing to ponder: the Canadians are not likely to put Mexico on that list because the Mexicans don't torture and imprison folks for no good reason near as much as we do.
  ------------------------------------------------------------

  Really? Do you really believe that crap?
  How does the Mexican government treat “refugees” or “migrant workers” they catch passing through their country on the way to the US?

  How often do well to do Mexicans get convicted of crimes and then have to serve out their sentences?

  You, sir, are confused.

• May 13, 2008

  8:10 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  DahmersCookbook writes:

  Hey muslim lovers! Here is what they think about you!

  http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics...

• May 13, 2008

  8:35 a.m.

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  Buckwheat writes:

  Now if we could just convince the rest of the world. Stay the hell out of our country. Stay where you are, solve your own damn problems, and leave us out of it. We don't want your help, don't ask for ours...

• May 13, 2008

  9:05 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Dick_Tater writes:

  Send them back. Getting into America via squatting does not bring in the talent we should be seeking. We need to make it easier for people to legally immigrate and harder to illegally do so. We don't need gardners and meat packers. Sure, we may have to pay a few cents more per item to support a few dollars more an hour in the laborers wage to hire a US citizen. But we have plenty of useless ( poorly educated / unskilled ) people here who should be taking those jobs. There are tens of thousands of people we deny the ability to enter our country every year. Most have advanced degrees, speak fluent english and done well enough in thier own country to afford to apply for citizenship in the US. By increasing the number we legally let in we can pick and choose highly talented, intelligent individuals and continue to make America the best country on this planet.

• May 13, 2008

  11:05 a.m.

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  mtman writes:

  Facinating idea! Run the country like a business? Recruit the best available candidates? Boost the bottom line with raw talent and new ideas? You're obviously not a civil servent DT. This kind of talk would get you voted off the island for sure! (Just so you know, we're on the same page here......)

• May 13, 2008

  11:24 a.m.

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  Marshdale writes:

  Thank god our border country to the north has some fricken comon sense and is not inherently paranoid. Quite frankly Dick Tater meat packers and gardeners are exactly what we have the need for seeing how skilled positions have been shipped out of this country like a springtime rummage sale. In spite of what you think, we are importing highly educated people in droves because our own skilled workforce is leaving in droves(in particular our scientists). Oh I forgot you conservatives hate science don't you? Our corporations can hire skilled foriegners at half the cost. Thats capitalism. You conservatives like capitalism don't you? You obviously have not been to a hospital or high tech firm lately. Have you seen how many foreign doctors and scientists are practicing here? Have you read the latest news regarding importation of skilled workers from other countries. The US has trippled what we allowed 25 years ago. I only point this out not because I have a problem with it, but because it is what it is.

• May 13, 2008

  1:33 p.m.

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  jgueddiche writes:

  Bravo Canada! In fact, we should be proud of the United States' own refugee program which admits more LEGAL refugees than any other nation in the world. Americans should be proud of this national commitment to human rights. It is the ignorant racists that are so scared of foreigners that want to shut the doors--though they have done NOTHING to earn their citizenship other than the fact that they were born here because their ancestors did the hard work to get here as immigrants in the first place. I think our gene pool needs more hardworking immigrants. OPEN THE DOORS!!!!

• May 13, 2008

  3:15 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  ramanboy33 writes:

  "Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"