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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 27, 2003

SCHUMER, NUN MAKE LAST MINUTE PLEA: DON'T SEND REFUGEE TO HIS CERTAIN DEATH

Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, and Bishop William F. Murphy, Bishop of Rockville Centre Long Island join Schumer to push for tortured refugee's release

Schumer lobbying prevented immediate deportation of Eritrean refugee soldier – but Washington higher-ups still prepare to ship him out at any time

Newly-instituted, inflexible "zero tolerance"policy could send "Mussie" and many others to certain deaths

US Senator Charles E. Schumer and Sister Delores Castellano of the Archdiocese of Rockville Centre today said that senior immigration officials in Washington would sooner send an Eritrean refugee solider named Alemseghed Mussie Tesfamical home to a certain death than make an exception to its one-size-fits-all policy against overruling even faulty Immigration Court rulings.

Schumer also revealed that the office of Edward Cardinal Egan, the Archbishop of New York, said that Cardinal Egan will ask for Mr. Tesfamical's release in letters and phone calls today to top immigration officials in Washington. Bishop William F. Murphy, Bishop of Rockville Centre Long Island will also push for Mr. Tesfamical's release in letters and phone calls today.

"When I heard Mussie's story, I said there was no way that my country was going to send a political prisoner back to face torture and death without a fight from me," Schumer said. "And while he hasn't been sent home to die yet, it could happen any day now because some higher-ups in Washington are standing on a tiny point of policy rather than acting with principles. The bureaucracy appears to be willing to stand by and sign Mussie's death warrant. I am not."

Two weeks ago, Schumer was told that he had succeeded in stopping the deportation of Alemseghed Mussie Tesfamical, a soldier who faced certain torture and death if he was sent back to the country of Eritrea. But Mr. Tesfamical has still not been released to live with his family in the United States because officials in Washington at the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services – the successor of the Immigration and Naturalization Service – will not sign off on his parole, leaving him in jeopardy of deportation at any time. Immigration officials in Washington have cited a "zero tolerance" policy against overruling even faulty deportation orders and refuse to use their prosecutorial judgement – and common sense – to treat Mr. Tesfamical's case like the classic asylum case that it is. Schumer said today that the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services' strict adherence to a "zero tolerance" policy not only leaves Mr. Tesfamical at risk of being forcefully expelled from the country at any point, but could send many other refugees to sure deaths as well.

Mr. Tesfamical was born in Ethiopia but moved with his family to Eritrea in 1993, just as that country gained its independence from Ethiopia. When the two nations went to war in 1998, Mr. Tesfamical was forced to join the Eritrean Army. While in the Army, he was persecuted and tortured by his superior officers because of his Ethiopian origins. Mr. Tesfamical was subjected to a torture technique called "the helicopter," in which his hands and feet were tied behind his back and he was forced to lie naked on his stomach in the desert sun for days. Other Eritrean soldiers poured milk and sugar on him, attracting flies and insects that crawled all over him.

Torture like this is not uncommon in Eritrea – the US State Department and numerous human rights groups say the country has one of the world's worst records on human rights, especially toward ethnic Ethiopians. Ethiopia and Eritrea have a long history of bloodshed between them, and on Thursday the United Nations acknowledged that it still cannot bring a resolution to the border dispute between the two countries. (A time line of the Ethiopian-Eritrean wars is included below.)

Mr. Tesfamical eventually escaped from the military, fled to the Sudan, and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in May 2002 seeking political asylum. A federal Immigration Judge issued an order to remove Mr. Tesfamical from the United States in September 2002 based on a legal reasoning that military deserters are not entitled to recognition under the US asylum laws. Schumer and Mr. Tesfamical's Catholic Charities immigration attorney strongly dispute this interpretation of the law. Mr. Tesfamical was deported in May of this year but was sent back to the United States days later by officials in Turkey, where his flight had a stop-over.

After being told by US Immigration officials that he would again be deported to Eritrea, Mr. Tesfamical attempted to hang himself while in Immigration custody. In addition to being of Ethiopian origin, Mr. Tesfamical was now a military deserter, which is a grave offense in Eritrea according to the State Department, Amnesty International, and other human rights groups. After his suicide attempt, Mr. Tesfamical was admitted to Holliswood Hospital, a private psychiatric institution in Queens.

While in Federal custody, Mr. Tesfamical met Sister Dolores Castellano, a retired nurse with the Congregation of the Infant Jesus and a nun with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre. Sister Dolores enlisted help for Mr. Tesfamical from Catholic Charities attorney Barbara Fortson, who later worked with Schumer's top immigration aide to reverse Mr. Tesfamical's deportation order. Sister Dolores joined Schumer today outside the hospital where Mr. Tesfamical is being held to push for his release.

"This was a classic asylum case and it's disheartening that the leadership of the Immigration has not fixed the problem – it's simply the right thing to do," Schumer said.

Although Eritrea had been historically and culturally separate from Ethiopia since the eighth century, it was formally made into Ethiopia's northernmost province in 1962. Shortly after this, the Eritrean War of Independence broke out. In 1993, Ethiopia's hard-line Communist government was deposed and the new government allowed a referendum on Eritrean independence to take place. Eritreans almost unanimously voted for independence, and Ethiopia officially recognized Eritrea's sovereignty in May 1993.
A brutal war broke out between the two countries in 1998 over the exact demarcation of the border between them. The war ended in 2000, but the official demarcation of the contested 1,000-km frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been repeatedly postponed. On Thursday, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special representative to Ethiopia and Eritrea, Mr. Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, acknowledged that the planned demarcation has again been postponed to an undetermined date.

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