Chinese Woman Worried About Forced Abortion Renews Fight for U.S. Asylum

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 3, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Chinese Woman Worried About Forced Abortion Renews Fight for U.S. Asylum

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 3
, 2008

Denver, CO (LifeNews.com) — A Chinese woman living in the United States for over a decade has renewed her battle for asylum after a federal appeals court denied her bid last month. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in November that Xiu Mei Wei did not prove her case.

The judges determined that she did not present enough evidence to prove that her fears of a forced abortion or sterilization would be realized.

They declined to re-open her case even though Wei is pregnant a fourth time and China’s family planning policies prevent women from having any more than one child.

Wei had a temporary visa that expired in April 1997. She stayed in the United States and eventually applied for asylum in November 2002 when she became pregnant with her third child.

Her New York attorney, John Chang, confirmed to WorldNetDaily on Wednesday that he is submitting a petition for rehearing before the full 10th Circuit.

Wei is able to remain in the U.S. while the re-hearing is pending but she could be deported immediately if the court turns down the appeal.

Through an interpreter, she told WND that she worries about what will happen to her if she is forced to return to China. In addition to the forced abortion and sterilization concerns, she would have nowhere to live and no job to provide for her family.

She said Chinese family planning officials would likely ban the children from school and that any family who helped hers would face possible imprisonment, job loss or other punishments.

While her appeals have been in the process, Wei gave birth to her third and fourth child while she and her family live in Oklahoma.

"She is very nervous and afraid if she has to go back to China," the interpreter, Hon Suen, told WND.

Meanwhile, Wei’s husband has a separate asylum request pending in court.

In its decision, the appeals court sided with an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, who both ruled that Wei did not file her asylum request within one year of having arrived in the U.S., as required by law.

The court also ruled that she failed to show how her circumstances made it so she couldn’t comply with the time requirement.

In the application, Wei’s local attorney, Lorance Hockert, filed a formal notice indicating population control officials in her hometown of Changle City in Fijian Province sent a notice to her mother.

The notice indicated that Wei and her husband would both be forcibly sterilized if she didn’t have an abortion of the child upon her return to China.

Wei provided proof in the asylum application of her sister-in-law undergoing a forced abortion and sterilization when she became pregnant with her third child.

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