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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Asylum Review Granted in ‘One-Child’ Policy Case

(CN) - The 7th Circuit told immigration authorities to reconsider the asylum application of a Chinese woman who said family-planning officers pulled down her pants and tried to force urine from her for a pregnancy test required by China's one-child policy.

Qiu Ping Li's problems with the Chinese government began when she ignored a summons to her first required periodic pregnancy test. Officers forcibly brought her to the family planning office.

Li, then 18, refused to provide a urine sample, and claimed that family-planning staff "yanked down her pants and forced or tried to force urine from her," according to the ruling.

But Li's troubles weren't over. When her cousin was pregnant with a second child, Li said she tried to block family-planning officers from entering her house. She was allegedly jailed for three days and fed only one meal per day. Li said she contracted gastritis from the tainted food.

The Board of Immigration Appeals did not question the credibility of Li's story, but ruled that her alleged mistreatment did not amount to persecution.

Judge Richard Posner said the board failed to decide if Li's allegations amounted to persecution.

"Whether in China's prudish culture the pulling down of an 18-year-old girl's pants by officers who were using force to try to extract urine from her, jailing her until her family paid a fine equal to a third of her year's wages, and feeding her tainted food in the jail amounted to persecution is an issue in the first instance for the Board to decide," Posner wrote. "So far as we can determine from its orders, it has yet to decide it. First it overlooked the critical facts, and then it unconvincingly denied having overlooked them."

He granted Li's petition for review and sent her case back to the immigration board.

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