SF appeals court says
gay Mexican man
is eligible for
asylum
By AP from sfgate.com/chronical
from the Web, August 13, 2005
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.
|
