This is all so complicated, yet so many insist on seeing only black and white.
This editorial from today's Post illustrates how complex and gut-wrenching these matters can be.
washingtonpost.com
No Choice at All
Saturday, May 27, 2000; Page A26
THE DEPORTATION proceeding against Maryland resident Virginia Anikwata is a classic example of what can happen when worries about possible precedent-setting are allowed to outweigh consideration of the near certain tragedy that a deportation would bring to a particular individual--or family. Ms. Anikwata, born in Mali, is the widowed mother of a 12-year-old daughter who, she has good reason to believe, will be subject to Mali's customary practice of female genital mutilation if the two return to the mother's homeland. The daughter, born here, is a U.S. citizen; the mother came legally as the wife of a Malian student, but his death left her without a legal right of residence.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has held that the well-founded fear that a woman will herself be subject to genital mutilation upon deportation is grounds for granting that woman asylum. But the fear that the same harm will come to her child does not necessarily qualify. (In one recent case, described along with Ms. Anikwata's in an article by Post reporter Susan Levine, a judge made the opposite ruling, citing special humanitarian grounds.) That puts a potential deportee in the impossible situation of having to decide whether to abandon minor children here or take them into danger. Mrs. Anikwata's supporters point out that INS willingness to split families in this way makes a mockery of the passionate family-reunification rhetoric that the government lavished on the Elian Gonzalez case.
Concern about a "floodgate problem" in immigration decisions is not always misplaced. It's reasonable to worry about establishing a rule by which parents who are here illegally could routinely gain asylum through their legally resident children. Widening the asylum category to encompass broader "gender-based oppression" also needs more thought. But in this case the INS is presenting a 12-year-old child with a choice between losing her mother and the barbarity of female genital mutilation. It's unlikely that this dreadful circumstance will ever apply to more than a trickle of applicants. The INS has the option of granting Mrs. Anikwata immediate discretionary relief in a hearing next week. It should seize the chance.
¸ 2000 The Washington Post Company |
