An unthinkable ordeal:
Blanca Medina was raped by five different men in El Salvador before she
fled to the United States. Terrified and traumatized, she thought she’d
at last found a safe haven to raise her 4-year-old daughter Alejandra.
But now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wants to deport her
-- potentially back into the hands of her rapists, who were never
arrested.
Forced back to certain danger?
Blanca fears for her life -- and Alejandra's -- if they have to go to
El Salvador. None of the men who raped her have been arrested, including
her stalker, and she’s terrified of what they’ll do if she's sent back
to El Salvador. But ICE is choosing to ignore this and other evidence.
You can help:
Blanca’s lawyer Matthew Muller is appalled at how ICE has treated
someone so vulnerable -- she’s been refused a female case officer, and
intimidated by male agents. But Matthew knows that public support has
saved countless people in the past -- and he’s sure that if enough
people join him, ICE will be forced to reverse its decision and allow
Blanca to stay in the U.S.
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More information about Matthew’s petition, in his own words:
Could
you imagine suffering torture five different times, only to be told that
no protection from your torturers was allowed because you missed a
deadline to apply? And what if you missed the deadline because you were still recovering from the last attack?
Blanca Medina doesn't have to imagine what that would be like. She sought safety in the United States after suffering five
rapes. Because of medical complications relating to those rapes, Blanca
missed a hearing to apply for protection and was ordered deported. An
Immigration and Customs Enforcement team tracked Blanca down and
detained her, separating her from her four-year-old daughter Alejandra.
Blanca told ICE
that she and Alejandra faced severe harm if deported. She asked for
permission to at least explain how she and her daughter could be
persecuted. ICE used a strange procedural rule to assert that it simply
did not have to listen. Under ICE rules, it is free to ignore even conclusive proof that a person would suffer slow death by torture if deported. This "willful blindness" policy could be ended through simple procedural changes by the Department of Homeland Security.
Until the
procedure is fixed, Blanca (and thousands of moms like her) face
deportation with no hope of finding protection from persecution or
torture. Join us in asking the U.S. government to end this
policy of willful blindness to torture and persecution, and allow
reasonable fear interviews for all who face deportation.
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