 Xiu Mei Wei |
DENVER – A Chinese citizen who has lived in the U.S. for a decade, spending much of that time seeking asylum because of government plans in her homeland to forcibly sterilize her on her return, is being ordered to that fate by a ruling from the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
The court said it was rejecting the appeal of Xiu Mei Wei [pronounced Shoe May Way] for asylum even though previous court rulings have found a “‘person who has a well founded fear that … she will be forced to undergo’ an abortion or sterilization ‘shall be deemed to have a well founded fear of persecution on account of political opinion.'”
Wei, speaking to WND through an interpreter today, said she faces an impossible future: returning to China for a forced sterilization and bringing with her the four children she’s borne in the U.S. to a future of no schooling and no jobs.
The issue is China’s one-child policy for couples. According to the court opinion, Wei documented a notice “by authorities in Changle City, Fujian Province (her hometown in China), to her mother … advising that if Mrs. Wei did not abort her third pregnancy, she or her husband would be sterilized upon their return to China.”
While the appeals and hearings have continued in her case, her third and now fourth children have been born. Her children are ages 9, 7, 5 and 1. The family has been living and working in Oklahoma.
The court, nevertheless, found she failed to properly submit asylum documents within one year of her arrival in the U.S., and subsequent concerns raised over her potential persecution in China for violating the one-child policy did not include any due process violations.
She’s represented by a New York attorney, John Chang, whose office confirmed a petition for rehearing had been submitted to the 10th Circuit.
She’s able to remain inside the U.S. while the petition is pending, but if it is rejected, her deportation could be imposed immediately.
Her husband has a separate appeal to be allowed to remain in the U.S. which hasn’t concluded yet.
Wei told WND not only would the Chinese government forcibly sterilize her, she would be subjected to fines and prison time for the fact that her four children exist. She said the children also would be punished by being banned from schools and jobs, and any relatives who tried to help probably would face a similar punishment.
She is hoping to get enough help, and favorable court rulings, to be allowed to stay in the U.S.
“She is very nervous and afraid if she has to go back to china,” the interpreter, Hon Suen, said of Wei.
She arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s on a temporary visa to meet her fiancé, who then ended their relationship. Without a way to return to China, and facing societal humiliation there for being rejected, she remained in the U.S. and later met and married her husband.
Her petition to remain came after the birth of her second child, since that birth put her in violation of China’s population controls. Initially rejected, she refiled, only to be turned down again.
“Mrs. Wei’s brief in support of her application for asylum and restriction on removal asserted both changed personal circumstances (becoming pregnant with her third child) and what she termed changed country conditions (the discovery of her third pregnancy by local Chinese officials.),” the court said.
Besides the Chinese government warning to her mother, Wei provided information about her sister-in-law’s forced abortion and sterilization.
But the court decided: “Mrs. Wei has not satisfied the requirements of reopening her removal proceedings. And she would have no right to file an asylum application without such a reopening.”
WND reported earlier this year on a woman who lost her first child to China’s forced-abortion policy after she became pregnant without permission.
Shiu Yon Zhou, whose ordeal has been presented to Congress, reported on her own tragedy just as the 2008 Olympics were under way in Beijing.
She said in 1993 her neighbor reported to police that she appeared to be pregnant without authorization, and police officers broke down the door of her family’s home to take her in shackles to a hospital where she was given a “pill” and locked up.
She told WND her father bribed a nurse to look the other way and she jumped from a second-story window, then fled with some family members to escape China on a fishing boat with dozens of other women. There were men, too, since those whose wives were found guilty in such cases often lost their jobs and homes as a penalty.
She reported her parents now live in another location in China under assumed names, and she conceals her residency location in the U.S. because of concerns over retaliation for her outspoken condemnation of forced abortion.
She ended up losing her child.
WND previously documented the horror of China’s forced abortions.
According to the China Aid Association, during one day in 2007 officials at the Youjiang District People’s Hospital of Baise City performed forced abortions on 41 women, with another 20 victimized the next day.
China Aid, which has its U.S. offices in Midland, Texas, said eyewitnesses confirmed the actions by government “Family Planning” authorities.
“Within 30 minutes, about 10 of them were injected forcefully for an abortion. This means within [the] last 24 hours, at least 61 babies were killed by forced abortions,” the sources within China told CAA.
“At bed Number 37, Ms. He Caigan was nine months pregnant. Officials injected her baby’s head and 20 minutes later, her baby stopped moving and died,” the sources said.
Many of the women targeted in the killing rampage were Christians, CAA said.
First exposed by WND in 1997, what has come to be known as “gendercide” in China – due to a cultural preference for boys – has resulted in the deaths of at least 50 million girls.
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