Court refuses asylum for Chinese couple claiming abortion threats

Associated Press (via San Jose Mercury News) ^ | 6 December 2002

[joeu]

Every Chinese person wants other Chinese people to limit the number of their children because 'overcrowded' is an understatment to describe the country. In some locations a comparison with Dantes' circles of hell would be appropriate because of the tremendous overpopulation.
At the same time, it is a well known trick of the trade among those who want to come to the US that the asylum card is an easy one to script and to play. The 9th circuit, this time, uncommonly, made the right call.

[dennisw]

Have you been there to witness the overpopulation? Thanks...

[dennisw]

Thank you for helping make my point. We're aborting and contracepting ourselves out of existence. I suppose that's just peachy with you.

That's not a prospect for the Chinese. At least one billion  are in China. Outside of China there are perhaps 200 million more and they have no limits on family size.

[dennisw]

I disagree with dennisw - there IS a humane solution to this. Anyone who makes it to our country OR who applies for asylum at our embassy in an effort to escape this barbaric policy that the People's Republic of China ought to be permitted to remain.

Sorry but it's scam and a lie 95% of the time. You are being played for the sucker. If they can absolutely prove genuine fear of China's abortion/sterilization policies then fine. But you just won't see it.

You really don't get how desperate 3rd worlders can get in their quest to live here. I believe in lawful immigration. Not immigration via scams

[mware]

I hear ya. I just sent this article to a friend of mine who
is a talk show host on WABC NY radio Sunday morning. I think
he will bring it up on his show.

[joeu]

Yes, I spent 10 years there.

[hchutch]

I'm just not willing to take a chance it might happen - we know the rep of the PRC. We KNOW about their brutal and barbaric practices in this area. Unless we can prove they are lying, I do not think we can send them back.

[dennisw]

Read post #101.

[hchutch]

Doesn't change my position.

Either the way the ChiComs are acting is right or wrong. And if they are acting in a manner that is wrong to those people, and if those people come here seeking protecting from actions of their own government that are morally reprehensible - how can we send them back?

It is no different than sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba or sending someone who jumped the Berlin wall back to East Germany.

[A2J]

I agree with you that people need to follow rules when they come to the US. Their situation is somewhat similar to Elian's. Does the United States send them (him) back now when we know that they'll end up in the Laogai or get killed for their organs (i.e., Elian getting brainwashed).

Well, it would appear that the couple, who circumvented the laws of the U.S. and China, have made a bed for themselves that they will have to sleep in.

If we keep people merely based upon what could happen, then we need to remove all border restraints and let the come in in massive droves. I think has been the problem for too long already and it has lead to a major problem.

Did you believe that we should have allowed Elian to stay?

Tough question.

Elian was brought here as a minor child by his mother who died. His relatives here, U.S. citizens, moved to have him kept against the direct wishes of his father, the guardian of the child. What transpired was a tug-of-war between Cubans who hated Castro and Castro who hated them. Elian was the unfortunate public pawn between the two. I believe that the Cubans here used Elian to bring public shame upon Castro.

On the other hand, Elian, I think was probably old enough to decide whether he wanted to go back and could have applied for citizenship, not asylum.

[Darksheare]

Absurd?
China has human rights abuses. Period.
They don't think like us, they don't like us.
They want us destroyed. They hate our government and hate what we stand for.
(I am using a generality here, obviously since the government there is a group of ideologues who make our press look like boy scouts. I am using 'they' and 'them' to describe the government, not the people. Did you get that? I do so hate having to explain it.)

"Anxious to know how they managed to marry without clearing it with the government"
You admit it yourself, they choose who you marry.

[HighRoadToChina]

"You are being played for the sucker. If they can absolutely prove genuine fear of China's abortion/sterilization policies then fine."

Here you go....one article on a personal story, another on a Chinese birth control official. Please do read both throughly before responding--I think you are being played the "sucker" on this issue:

Saturday, May 19 2001 5:00 PM SGT
Chinese woman refusing sterilization beaten to death: relatives
BEIJING, May 19 (AFP)

A 34-year-old woman in southeast China's Fujian province was beaten to death by birth-control officials who wanted to sterilize her against her will, her relatives said on Saturday.

Sun Zhonghua, from a farming family in Xiapu county near the provincial capital of Fuzhou, was taken away by birth-control officials from her home by daybreak on Wednesday, a relative told AFP by telephone.

The officials told Sun, the mother of two boys aged 12 and 13, that she was to be taken to the birth-control clinic for sterilization, a procedure they had previously been pressing her to submit herself to.

She refused vehemently, showing documents obtained from a local hospital in April that the planned operation was not advisable because of a medical condition.

Despite her and her relatives' protests, she was forced into a waiting car and driven away.

In the afternoon of the same day, officials informed Sun's relatives that she had died after jumping from the fourth floor of the building housing the local birth-control administration.

Family members who were allowed to see her body discovered large bruises to her head and different parts of her body.

"There is no way she could have received those injuries from jumping to her death," said the relative.

During the anxious hours on Wednesday while Sun's relatives were waiting for news about her, they went to the police to report the birth-control officials' violent manner when taking her from her home.

But they were given the rounds by a string of police officials, who appeared unwilling to get involved in the case.

"We tried to report the incident, but there was no one to report to," said the relative.

Already being the mother of two, Sun understood that she had to conform with national population policies and had no plans of giving birth to more children, her family said.

She had gone to the hospital every year since 1992 to make sure she was not pregnant, they said.

China's controversial "one child" policy continues to result in serious human rights violations 20 years after it became law.

In the early years, the world was shocked by mass campaigns to round up women and sterilize them almost like cattle.

Such public campaigns are rare now, but the policy is being enforced in ways that many human rights groups say are equally unjust.

Pressure on China's army of family planning workers to meet the birth quota in their jurisdiction have led to widespread excesses.

Family planning workers and local officials resort to beating people, locking them up illegally, confiscating livestock and destroying their homes.

Despite the harsh measures, births are still growing at an annual rate of 10 million and the government has vowed to continue the policy to cap the population at 1.6 billion by the year 2050.

China's population now stands at nearly 1.3 billion, the largest in the world. Beijing credits the policy for helping the country avoid 300 million births.

__________________

Former Chinese official describes forced abortions
Defector tells how she oversaw raids, ordered sterilization of women
By Mike Dorning
Washington Bureau
June 11, 1998

WASHINGTON -- A Chinese defector identified as a former provincial birth control officer told a congressional hearing Wednesday of overseeing forced sterilizations, night-time raids on the homes of pregnant women and forced
abortions as late as nine months into pregnancy.

Displaying smuggled identity cards, documents and videotape to bolster her credibility, the defector, Gao Xiao Duan, described a brutal enforcement system for China's strict family planning policy.

She said she used informers to find women who tried to conceal "unauthorized" pregnancies. Gao also said she sometimes ordered homes demolished and family members arrested to retaliate against women who tried
to hide from enforced abortions.

Gao's testimony, preceded by a U.S. network television appearance Tuesday night, reinforces long-standing concerns over China's strict family planning policy and reports of women forced to have abortions.

A January 1998 State Department analysis found "credible reports" of forced abortions, which it attributed to "poor supervision" of Chinese officials "under intense pressure to meet family planning targets."

Sandra Waldman of the New York-based Population Council said there appears to be "great disparity" in how local authorities enforce China's policies.

When local officials are subject to quotas to control population growth, "the underlings sometimes go to extremes, which apparently happened in this case," she said.

The hearing came as congressional Republicans seek to spotlight China's human rights abuses in advance of President Clinton's scheduled trip to China later this month.

Last week, another congressional committee held hearings on reports Chinese sold human organs, with a witness also appearing on network television.

The House has adopted resolutions calling on Clinton to cancel his China trip.

In addition, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate are gearing up for investigations of alleged links between Clinton campaign contributions and administration approval of Chinese launches of American-made satellites.

Wednesday the focus was on Gao, a stern-faced woman who testified in a navy blue suit buttoned to the collar. As her testimony went on, her demeanor broke and she began to sob softly.

Gao said she once was present when a woman nine months pregnant was seized at her parents' house, "immediately stuffed into a car" and forced to undergo an abortion.

"In the operating room, I saw how the aborted child's lips were still moving, how its limbs were also moving. The doctor injected poison into it skull, and the child died, and it was thrown into a trash can," Gao said.

"Afterward, the husband was holding his wife in his arms and crying loudly, 'What kind of a husband am I . . . I cannot protect my wife.'"

Gao said abortions routinely were performed on women who did not have permits for pregnancy. She said 10 to 15 abortions were performed monthly in Yonghe, the town she supervised, in coastal Fujian Province.

She said regional family planning officials are under tremendous pressure to reduce population growth in their areas and "will resort to anything to achieve planned-birth goals set by their superiors."

Area women younger than 20 are not allowed to become pregnant nor are unmarried women, she said. Because sons are prized in Chinese culture, married women are given permission for a second child only if their first was a daughter. No third child is allowed, she said.

Women who become pregnant too young or have "extra" children may undergo forced sterilization, she said.

Gao described the case of one woman whose intra-uterine contraceptive device was inserted incorrectly and she became pregnant, then hid while she carried to term a second child.

"I sent a bulldozer to demolish her house and her brother's house. She was then sterilized." Gao said.

Gao said a computer database in her town tracks women of child-bearing age, monitoring marriages, births, abortions and contraceptive status.

She said those women are required to have periodic exams to monitor contraception; they are fined and apprehended if they fail to keep appointments, she said.

Gao said she had to hide her own second child, an adopted son, for fear she would suffer reprisals. She and her husband left China in April for a vacation and sought asylum in the U.S., but the children are still in China.

Prominent Chinese exile dissident Harry Wu, a leading campaigner against Chinese human rights abuses, accompanied Gao and testified at the hearing.

Lee McClenny, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said the Clinton administration is "troubled by the report and will look into it further."

He said U.S. diplomats have "stressed repeatedly" their "concerns" to the Chinese government over reports of coerced abortions and sterilizations.

China does not receive any family planning assistance from the United States.

Although the U.S. contributes to a United Nations fund that supplies family planning assistance to China, the U.S. deducts the full $5 million of that assistance from the dues it pays to the family planning fund.

Alex Marshall, a spokesman for the UN Population Division, said the UN assistance pays only for a pilot program in 38 Chinese counties. Chinese officials have agreed to not set quotas in those counties and to not engage in coercive family planning activity, he said.

The UN-assisted program is "completely voluntary. That's the most effective approach from our point of view, not just for human rights reasons but because it works best in the long run," he said.

Although the UN is aware of anecdotal reports of forced abortions in China, he said that it is "impossible" to assess how widespread abuses are.

Marshall called the charges in Gao's testimony "serious allegations" that UN officials will raise with the Chinese government.

Her testimony goes beyond previous reports because "it's from someone who claims to be personally involved for a number of years," he said.

The Chinese Embassy did not return phone messages seeking comment.

[HighRoadToChina]

"On the other hand, Elian, I think was probably old enough to decide whether he wanted to go back and could have applied for citizenship, not asylum."

That's about says it all. I guess you didn't see that INS picture....

[babygene]

I believe the Chinese government should force women to be sterilized. This is a whole lot more acceptable in my view than abortion.

What those of you that are against this court ruling are not considering is that a contrary ruling would potentially require us to grant political asylum to every citizen of China. Clearly we can't do that.

[A2J]

There must be 25 million similar cases in China

Which begs the question as to whether we want another 25 million aliens on our soil.

I believe in the present case, the couple was looking for a way to get out of a country and used a potential for an abortion to play upon our emotions. Had they had children and/or was pregnant, then I would strongly consider giving them asylum. However, the couple didn't make the case.

Bon voyage.

[A2J]

I disagree with dennisw - there IS a humane solution to this. Anyone who makes it to our country OR who applies for asylum at our embassy in an effort to escape this barbaric policy that the People's Republic of China ought to be permitted to remain.

Then, should you get your wish, we will have to rename our country from the "United States" to "China-West." Is that really what you want?

Your stand opens the door to rampant abuse.

[A2J]

My Chinese wife (who is still a PRC citizen) and all of her relatives are anxious to know how they managed to marry without first clearing their choice with the government.

Excellent point.

While many of China's policies are horrible, I think this issue is one based more on emotion than fact.

[A2J]

Every Chinese person wants other Chinese people to limit the number of their children because 'overcrowded' is an understatment to describe the country.

I work with Chinese everyday and they tell me that overpopulation exists on in the cities. There's vast territories that are completely uninhabited that can be opened and maintained for people to move to.

[hchutch]

Look, it all depends on if you find the PRC's policies acceptable or not. If you find those policies acceptable, then feel free to demand deportation of those who come here to flee them.

If you find them unacceptable, as I do, then it comes down to a simple question: Do you send someone back who is fleeing those policies? She might not be pregnant, but she's already declared to ChiCom informants that she intends to defy that policy - and their population control Gestapo will NOT sit back and let that happen. Bank on it. She goes back, I guarantee that they will force her to undergo sterilization.

Do you want that on your conscience? I don't. I don't want my country to have any part of those barbaric policies.