Subject: [Peninsula_Interweave] Fw:Local case: Trans woman seeks asylum, faces deportation

From: Frey <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 21:08:22 -0700 (GMT-07:00)

Have you heard of this?  I hope the Transgender Law Center is involved  -Frey

>
>Trans woman seeks asylum, faces deportation
>
>Published 08/31/2006 
>by Zak Szymanski 
>[email-masked]
>Bay Area Reporter - CA,USA
>
>http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1121
>
>Michelle Saraswati was getting ready to step into the shower on
>Tuesday, August 8, when there was a knock at the door of her San
>Francisco apartment. That knock turned out to be a signal that the
>past few years of uncertainty had caught up with her.
>
>Immigration officials promptly arrested the 40-year-old professional
>architect, with a threat from the U.S. government that she soon
>would be deported back to the Muslim island of Java on Indonesia.
>
>"I am so scared. This is like an execution for me," Saraswati told
>the Bay Area Reporter during an interview from the Santa Clara
>County jail in San Jose on Sunday, August 27. "If I have to go back,
>my life will be over."
>
>Saraswati, originally known as Michael Setiabudi to the federal
>Board of Immigration Appeals, is a transsexual woman. 
>
>Although the U.S. has its share of transgender discrimination and
>violence, Saraswati has been living as openly trans here and working
>as an architectural drafter, contributing to design development for
>numerous houses, high schools, and colleges including Horace Mann,
>Galileo High School, and City College of San Francisco. 
>
>There are no laws or legal recourse in Indonesia for transgender
>discrimination or hate crimes, and returning to her home country
>would virtually guarantee her a life of poverty, joblessness, and
>abuse, she said. It's not just that employment opportunities for
>transgender women (known as "warias") are limited to hairdressing
>and prostitution, but that such options would not be feasible for
>Saraswati at all, given her background and education in the
>class-segregated society. Such jobs also make transgender women
>targets for violence.
>
>"I don't know the first thing about doing hair and I will not do sex
>work, so I don't have any way to earn a living. But even if I
>learned how to do hair, I would still have to get home at night on
>public transportation by myself. I could be tortured," she said. " I
>saw Muslim men hit the warias and throw rocks at them. I also saw
>how common it was for the men to sexually assault the warias by
>grabbing at their bodies without their consent. It is widely
>believed that there is nothing wrong with men grabbing a waria's
>body. If I am forced to go back, I know that I will be treated as
>the other warias are - beaten and sexually assaulted with no one to
>protect me."
>
>Saraswati also happens to be Catholic in a Muslim country, which she
>said increases her chances for discrimination and violence.
>Additionally, her family members rejected her after her gender
>transition, and she has nobody to turn to in Indonesia.
>
>Three weeks after her arrest, Saraswati has been able to secure
>emergency legal assistance, a temporary stay of deportation, and the
>committed support of her circle of friends. But she remains housed
>in the men's prison, anxiously aware that any change in her status
>could put her on the next flight out of the country. And her case is
>a difficult one, where every legal decision matters and every day
>counts.
>
>Long journey
>
>While Saraswati's immigration struggles can be traced back several
>years, her journey to her true female self really begins in
>childhood, she said. Always effeminate - her father, a medical
>practitioner, gave her male hormones for a while when she entered
>puberty - she had assumed she was a gay man due to her sexual
>attractions to men. As an adult homosexual man in Indonesia, Michael
>Setiabudi was frequently beaten and faced discrimination. Although
>aware of warias, Setiabudi also assumed that he had nothing in
>common with them given the distinct separations in society. This
>assumption followed him to America, which he entered in 1998 on a
>tourist visa, soon securing a temporary work visa for architecture,
>which expired in 2001.
>
>On November 30, 2001, Setiabudi applied for asylum based on the
>violence and persecution that he had suffered as a gay man, which
>was how he identified at that time. The application was denied by an
>immigration judge who did not appear sympathetic to the case, and it
>was then denied on appeal by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
>Setiabudi was not advised of the right to appeal the matter further.
>
>Fearing for his safety, Setiabudi decided to stay in America for as
>long as he could. Interestingly, U.S. officials noted at the time
>that had Michael Setiabudi been a transsexual, there would have had
>been more of a case for asylum.
>
>But despite being in the trans-friendly city of San Francisco, "I
>was a loner," said Saraswati of her early days in the city,
>explaining how she was not tapped into any trans awareness at the
>time of her original case. Though she had been secretly
>cross-dressing since 2001, it took extensive Internet research for
>her to understand that she did have options in America and could
>continue to be self-sufficient in San Francisco even if she
>transitioned.
>
>"In December 2004 or January 2005, I started thinking more about the
>fact that I have always identified as a very feminine person. I also
>started to realize that I was actually not very attracted to gay
>men, or comfortable in gay male relationships, and found myself much
>more attracted to heterosexual men," her personal statement reads as
>part of a new motion to re-open her case for asylum. "Through this
>Internet research, I found out about the Tom Waddell clinic in San
>Francisco, where I live, which has a specific transgender program,
>and began seeking medical treatment from the medical staff there. In
>approximately March or April 2005, after undergoing three months of
>psychological counseling, I decided to begin taking hormone
>medications to take steps towards coming out of the closet as a
>transsexual. This was a very huge and scary step for me."
>
>Proving that Saraswati has an authentic transsexual identity and
>experience - yet was unaware of her trans status until recently - is
>crucial to her new case, as asylum claims can only be filed again if
>there is a significant change in circumstance. 
>
>Zach Nightingale, an attorney with the law firm Van Der Hout,
>Brigagliano & Nightingale, said that Saraswati's medical and legal
>gender change "gives rise to a whole new reason for asylum," and he
>is representing her in a claim to re-open the case. Although it is
>possible that the government could claim Saraswati transitioned
>genders in order to be granted asylum, Nightingale does not think
>such an argument would hold much weight. "That's a pretty big step
>for another long-shot asylum case."
>
>But higher-up, confusion about the differences between sexual
>orientation and gender identity may play a role in how the case
>moves forward. Last week, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied a
>request to stay Saraswati's deportation, based on the likelihood
>that they would also deny her motion to re-open her asylum case. The
>Department of Homeland Security then filed an opposition to re-open
>the case, due to Saraswati already filing for asylum based on sexual
>orientation.
>
>Nightingale immediately filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
>Appeals, asking it to grant a stay of deportation while the asylum
>matter is adjudicated. Filing with the 9th Circuit automatically
>granted a temporary stay of deportation, but if the 9th Circuit
>rules against the motion for the longer-term stay, Saraswati could
>immediately be deported, at which point she will no longer have an
>asylum case at all. 
>
>In the meantime, Saraswati said she "would rather be in the women's
>jail" but she is receiving her hormones and feels generally
>well-treated in Santa Clara, a few "intimidating" prisoners aside. 
>
>A group of supportive friends have set up a legal defense fund
>through the PayPal account [email-masked] or the
>Michelle Saraswati Legal Defense Fund, c/o Annalise Ophelian, 740 A
>14th Street #199, San Francisco, CA 94114. Many community members
>also have submitted statements on Saraswati's behalf to support a
>new asylum claim. And although local officials do not have
>jurisdiction over the matter, they are indeed watching the case with
>interest.
>
>"Michelle puts a face on a serious problem with this country's
>immigration problems," said San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano.
>"Xenophobia, homophobia, and transphobia are not attributes to be
>admired in a democratic society."
>
>Supervisor Bevan Dufty told the B.A.R. that he has contacted the
>office of U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) for help with
>the matter.
>
>"He's the co-chair of the human rights caucus and he has helped me
>before in matters of LGBT immigration, and his office has pledged to
>make some inquiries and coordinate with us to see what can be done,"
>said Dufty. 
>
>
>Copyright C 2005, Bay Area Reporter, a division of Benro
>Enterprises, Inc.
>
> 
>