Posted on 08/13/2005 12:10:55 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court has ruled that an AIDS-afflicted gay man who fled Mexico because he feared persecution is eligible for political asylum in the United States.
Friday's decision by the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses rulings by immigration courts that ordered the deportation of Jose Boer-Sedano, who claimed a police officer in Mexico had forced him to perform sex acts under threat of being outed or killed.
The three-judge panel said Boer-Sedano, 45, would likely face further abuse and have difficulty getting life-sustaining AIDS medication if he were sent back to Mexico, where the U.S. State Department has found that violence against gays is widespread.
The ruling is the latest by the San Francisco-based court in which it has granted refuge to gay or transgender asylum applicants from Latin America based on evidence of abuse inflicted or condoned by police.
"It really does mean that he'll be safe now," said Boer-Sedano's lawyer, Angela Bean, who said her client was overcome with emotion when he heard the news.
Boer-Sedano, who now works as a waiter and busboy at a San Francisco hotel, was ostracized by family and friends in the town of Tampico in the eastern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, and was later harassed by co-workers because of his homosexuality, the court said.
Boer-Sedano said in the late 1980s a high-ranking officer stopped him nine times over three months and forced him to perform oral sex. The officer threatened to expose his homosexuality, talked about killing him and once held a gun to his head.
Boer-Sedano came to San Francisco on a six-month visa in 1990, and his deportation proceedings began seven years later. An immigration judge denied his asylum claim, saying his encounters with the officer didn't amount to persecution.
But the appeals court ruled Friday that the assaults were clearly motivated by Boer-Sedano's homosexuality, and that the death threats constituted persecution by a government agent.
Judicial dictatorship.
Time to repeal the assylum law.
Will all aids-infected people move to the U.S.? How about people with leprosy? TB?
For the sake of your health, don't go to San Francisco.
words fail
Looks like they are already moving here, doesn't it?
Actually U.S. law prohibits people with HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases from immigrating to the U.S. but when did the 9th Circus actually care about the law?
But we won't.
A senor-eater?
But here, he will have no difficulty getting medication because you and I will pay for it.
ROFLMAO! A fudge packing taco bender.
Well, I guess pretty soon we'll see all the Juans and Joses and Pablos holding hands and skipping two-by-two across the Rio Grande, then claiming asylum.
}:-)4
But we won't.
=======================
"So?" thinks the liberal with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
AIDS do your duty!
They're already here. Leprosy is now endemic in the northeast United States for the first time in history.
Dang. When I first read the headline I thought maybe they meant he was eligible to placed in an asylum.
I guess being a butt pirate qualifies you now.
Your link goes to a dictionary, for crying out loud. Got a real link to support for your allegation?
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