I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Mohammad Abdollahi, the gay man from Iran who participated in a protest at Arizona Sen. John McCain’s office earlier this year, has been featured in a report by ABC News.
In the piece, immigration experts and advocates discuss the difficulty Abdollahi faces in seeking asylum. Abdollahi came to the U.S. when he was three years old, and did not know that he was in the country without permission until he was 17 or 18. That was also the time he realized he was gay.
Abdollahi and other youth in a similar predicament have been publicly advocating for passage of the DREAM Act. That legislation would create a path to citizenship for undocumented youth who have grown up in the U.S. and call the country home.
But Abdollahi faces serious difficulties. As a gay man, if he is returned to Iran, he faces harassment and violence from other Iranians. He face torture and possibly the death sentence at the hands of the Iranian government. Because he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Abdollahi faces deportation to Iran, but has asked for asylum.
More than 13,000 immigrants in situations such as Abdollahi’s requested so-called “withholding removal” status in U.S. immigration courts last year, according to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. But only 14 percent of the requests were granted, reflecting a much more stringent standard than that applied to asylum applications filed by people not facing deportation, reports ABC News.
As for the prospect of going back to a land hostile to his sexuality, Abdollahi had this to say:
“It’s not something I can imagine,” he said of the thought of returning to Iran. “It would be a very scary thing because I haven’t hidden my sexuality in talking with friends or the media.”
Abdollahi will face an immigration judge in Michigan sometime before the end of the month.
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