Federal Appeals Court Rejects Decisions of Board of Immigration Appeals on FGM
"In a scathing opinion, a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday that immigration judges and the appellate system established as a check on their decisions committed “obvious errors” by denying asylum to three Guinean women who claimed that they were victims of genital cutting [a.k.a. "female genital mutilation," or "FGM"] back in Africa.
The three women — Salimatou Bah, Mariama Diallo and Haby Diallo — had all appealed their asylum cases from lower courts to the Board of Immigration Appeals last year. While they had told the board that they feared for their own safety (and, in two of the women’s cases, for that of their daughters) if they were sent back to Guinea, the board, in separate decisions, ruled that because their genitals had already been cut, they had nothing more to worry about."
ALAN FEUER in the New York Times.