Asylum Seekers charged with Document Fraud have their Cases Tossed

Two African women who sought asylum in the United States only to be arrested at the Canadian border lost federal appeals Monday to have their cases tossed   
Linda Malenge, a Congolese native, was arrested by U.S. Customs agents after she boarded an Amtrak train for New York City on Feb. 26, 2006. She was given time already served after pleading guilty in June 2007 to false personation and false use and misuse of a passport.

She later served time in the Washington County jail, but appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, hoping to get the indictment tossed.

But the court upheld the decision while showing a degree of understanding to the woman’s plight.

“We do not take lightly the fact that Malenge tried to enter the country by presenting false identification and lying to border officers,” the decision stated, “But we also recognize that some refugees, particularly those fleeing political violence, harbor a natural distrust of government officials.”

The appeals court also upheld the indictment against Ramatulai Barry, a native of Guinea stopped on Sept. 9, 2006, as she tried to enter the U.S. to find her husband, The Asylum Office representative later found she held showed a “credible fear of persecution based on her testimony that she had been threatened, raped and tortured by Guinean police officers due to her political activity.” She had also “described being subjected to female genital mutilation by her family in Guinea,” court papers said. But the appeal was rejected.  For the full story, click here.

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