She was kidnapped by Salvadoran guerillas three decades ago, watched her husband be killed and forced to cook and clean for the militants. Now she can't stay in the US — because that was supporting terrorists, a court says.
The main appellate body of the immigration courts issued a divided opinion Wednesday with broad implications, finding that a woman from El Salvador is ineligible for status in the US because her 1990 abduction and forced labor amount to "material support" of a terrorist organization.
According to the court documents, the woman was kidnapped by the guerrillas in El Salvador and made to do the cooking and cleaning "under threat of death." She was also "forced to witness her husband, a sergeant in the Salvadoran Army, dig his own grave before being killed."
Nevertheless, the
2-1 opinion holds that the woman's coerced duties for the group constituted "material support" for a terrorist organization, and thus made her ineligible to be granted asylum or have her deportation order canceled in the US -- though a lower court judge had ruled she would otherwise be eligible for such relief. The woman first came to the US illegally in 1991 but
gained Temporary Protected Status -- which is granted to countries that suffer natural disasters and other mass problems and was afforded to El Salvador for decades.
