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| Mentally Retarded Youth Seeking U.S. Asylum Is Jailed, Abused |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 03/27/2002 |
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In January 2001, Malik Jarno, a 16-year-old orphan from Guinea in West Africa who is mentally retarded, arrived in the United States seeking sanctuary from a conflict in which much of his family died. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service locked him away in an adult prison. He had no lawyer until fellow inmates got him help through an American Islamic group and he did not see an immigration judge for nine months. He was abused by fellow inmates with whom he could not communicate. He was held in solitary confinement for a week and on one occasion pepper sprayed and beaten by officers. The authorities, who are treating Jarno as an adult despite his birth certificate, which states he was born on Jan. 7, 1985, are trying to deport him and have offered his lawyers no explanation for his treatment. A spokeswoman told Reuters the agency cannot comment on individual cases. Each year the INS holds in custody about 5,000 unaccompanied children caught trying to enter the United States without papers. Human rights advocates say many are often held in prison for months where they can suffer abuse. The INS has come under heavy criticism in the last year for inefficiency and the administration of President Bush has promised reforms. Right now, Jarno is being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia, the third adult prison in which he has been housed. Jarno's mother died when he was about 12. His father was an Imam and local community leader in Guinea who was jailed in 1998 and died in prison. His brother disappeared and is presumed dead. He fled to France with an aunt who abandoned him and was taken care of for a while by a Moroccan friend. When the friend decided to return to Morocco, he acquired a fake passport for Jarno and bought him a ticket to the United States. The friend told him he would be taken care of in America because 'it is the land of freedom.' |
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