Government to Pay Refugee Denied Asylum (moved from ATSNN), page 1

The U.S. government will pay $87,500 to settle a lawsuit by a woman who was refused political asylum and put on a plane back to Kenya with her two-year-old daughter. Lawyers for Rosebell Munyua, 45, said it's the first settlement of its kind and a precedent-setting victory for future refugee claimants. The U.S. Attorney's Office said the settlement, was not an admission of wrongdoing, but declined to comment further.

www.washingtonpost.com
The U.S. government agreed to pay $87,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a Kenyan refugee who was denied political asylum in the United States.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, which handled the woman's case, said it is the first time an arriving refugee has received a settlement in a lawsuit accusing the government of negligence.

Rosebell Munyua, 35, claimed the government was negligent because it sent her back to Kenya, even though she said she told immigration officials she feared for her life.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said the settlement, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, was not an admission of wrongdoing, but declined to comment further.

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First, she tried to enter though San Francisco, was denying entry, and sent back. Then she enters via Houston and gets accepted only to file huge lawsuit. What is wrong with this picture considering the following facts;

1. Immigration officials said in court papers that Munyua never "sought refuge from them or mentioned that she would be `killed' if she were returned to Kenya."

2. The government also says Munyua lied to embassy officials in Kenya when she said she did not have family members in the United States.

I would like to know why the government settled. I think that if she did not mention she would be killed she should have been sent back, and then to add insult to injury she lied which would be automatic grounds for expulsion. The only good thing here is the fact she did not get the one million dollars she was seeking. The down side of this is we will probably see a rash of similar lawsuits all at the expense of the American Taxpayers

[edit on 4/29/2005 by shots]