Court Considers Wealth As Asylum Claim

[Rose Siding]

NEW YORK -- A federal appeals court has ordered an immigration board to consider whether some Guatemalans could qualify for asylum over fear of persecution for being rich.

Ruling in a case of a couple whose asylum claim was denied, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a judge should have considered testimony that they had been threatened with kidnapping and that police did not help them.
....
An immigration judge denied the application, saying affluent Guatemalans did not make up a "readily identifiable social group."

But on Wednesday, the three-judge appeals panel ordered the Board of Immigration Appeals -- a step higher than an immigration judge -- to decide whether there is a legitimate social group of affluent Guatemalans who suffer persecution fueled by class rivalry in an impoverished society.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-wealthy-asylum,1,7035918.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[Demeter]

1. Words Fail Me

Of course, with current misAdministration, the rich would have the best of all possible worlds here. Truly, Dubya has created a cheap, comfortable, classy place of asylum for the rich right here in the good old US of A. It's clean, safe, and stocked with services and lots of people willing to work for a pittance.

[Warpy]

2. Give us your rested, your leisured, your unconscionably rich..

This is one more thing to show us that our country has indeed been stolen out from under us by the rich, now the world's rich.

It would be wonderful to see all the Central and South American oligarchs come here just in time for our own revolution, one that restored all the New Deal protections against creating an inherited aristocracy.

[TechBear_Seattle]

3. "... yearning to be tax-free"

How much longer before we have millionairs from Sweden, France and other socialist countries claiming asylum in the US and citing high taxes as proof of persecution?

[Inland]

4. *snort* nicely put. nt

[redqueen]

5. *sigh*

Are they *trying* to provoke WORKING people?

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. Provoke? No. Ignore? Yes, and they're doing that brilliantly.

Working class people don't matter, except insofar as we can make the very rich even richer.

[primavera]

7. Not just our country

Wealthy Americans are buying up Latin America for pennies on the dollar, where the cost of real estate is a fraction what it is here and where governments welcome infusions of foreign cash. That is, until it gets out of hand and the prices begin to increase to the point where their own citizens can no longer afford to own land. Then they get sellers' remorse, but by then of course, it's too late, the country's already been sold off and wealthy Americans become even more obscenely wealthy developing the property at the expense of the indigenous population.

[formercia]

8. The war in Central America in the 80's was about Real Estate

not Communism. The ruling families wanted squatters off land that they wanted to develop. Death squads failed to remove the squatters and they began to fight back, leading them to be declared as marxist rebels thus triggering military help from the US.

[VegasWolf]

9. This is giving Bush wet dreams. If the rich can qualify as a minority

then they are eligible for all sorts of government contracts handed out to minority business, etc. What a blessing for the downtrodden elite!

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Many countries let in rich people as immigrants

as long as they bring their money with them. They don't need asylum.

[Rose Siding]

11. "Eleventh Circuit Thinks Death Threats and Gun Shots Don’t Justify Asylum"

On May 5, 2006, the Eleventh Circuit issued a split, 2-1 decision denying asylum to a Colombian woman who, because of her political work, had been on the receiving end of menacing phone calls, a death threat note and gunfire. Previously filibustered, formerly recess-appointed, highly controversial Bush II pick Bill Pryor authored the majority opinion over a stinging dissent by Bush I appointee Ed Carnes. Apparently, Judge Carnes decided he’d finally had it with the errors committed by the immigration judges below him.

.......more........

http://www.afj.org/2006/05/eleventh-circuit-thinks-death-threats.html

[Duer 157099]

12. LOL, well that's one way to try to get above 29%