The Case of Malik Jarno

The wheels have now come completely off the freakin' cart...

--ryan


Judge to Rule Case of West African Teen


By MATTHEW BARAKAT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ARLINGTON, Va. -- A West African teenager is awaiting a judge's ruling on his request for asylum in the United States following a lengthy hearing that involved a mountain of evidence and questioning that critics called absurd.

Malik Jarno, who arrived at Washington's Dulles International Airport in 2001 alone and carrying a fake passport, claims he will be persecuted if he is returned to Guinea. The government opposes his asylum request and has disputed his story.

Before issuing a ruling next month, Judge Joan Churchill will review transcripts from a hearing that stretched over nearly two months and included hundreds exhibits. Churchill said it was the largest body of evidence she has ever seen in an asylum case.

Jarno said he is just relieved the hearing is finally over. "I was nervous when I testified, because the questions they asked make no sense," he said.

Immigration reform advocates say Jarno's case is emblematic of the difficulties faced by an estimated 5,000 children who enter the country unaccompanied each year. Their work has drawn support from about 70 members of Congress who have asked the Department of Homeland Security to allow Jarno to stay in the United States.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has even sponsored a bill tailored to Jarno's case that would give him legal residency. It awaits a committee vote in the House of Representatives.

Jarno's supporters said the hearing at times digressed into irrelevance and rarely touched on the core issue of whether Jarno faces persecution if he is returned to his homeland.

Among the questions directed at Jarno and other witnesses: "How did Malik know when to go school in Guinea if he didn't own a clock?" and "Did he sit in first class on the plane trip to America?" and "What color was the Peugeot he used to ride in back in Guinea?"

"This has just gotten to a level of detail that just distorts and subverts the interest of an impartial hearing into an asylum claim," said Bill Frelick, director of refugee services for Amnesty International.

The government and Jarno's team of pro bono lawyers agree on almost nothing in the case, including Jarno's name and age.

Jarno says he grew up in Guinea but had to flee after his father, a religious and political leader, was killed by the government. He says his uncle and brother were also killed and that friends and family eventually put him on a plane to the United States with a fake passport.

Dulles International Airport officials discovered the passport was a fake, and Jarno spent the better part of the next 2 1/2 years in prisons while his case worked through the immigration process. Since Christmas 2003, he has been free and living in a group home in York, Pa.

Jarno's lawyers, whose firms have contributed millions of dollars in legal work to his case, say he was 16 when he arrived in America and is mildly mentally retarded.

But Department of Homeland Security officials dispute the authenticity of his birth certificate, suggesting that Malik Jarno is an assumed name, and say the results of his IQ tests are skewed by cultural and linguistic factors.

Most important, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for the department, is that Jarno's claims are marred by the fact that he lied when he entered the country.

"The most important thing an applicant takes into the asylum process is credibility," he said. "When that credibility is damaged, it makes it that much harder."