Groups calls for better treatment of migrants; man details his plight

Published: 2006-06-22

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Pascal Akame arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington in November 2004 confident that his history of being imprisoned and tortured for his work with human rights organizations in Cameroon met the standards for obtaining U.S. political asylum. Not only did his mistreatment in his homeland qualify him for asylum, Akame thought, but he had visited the United States previously, spoke English fluently and was a lawyer. But, as he told reporters at a press conference for a new international coalition on detention June 19, as soon as he made his asylum claim to airport immigration authorities, he was immediately detained, with no chance to even make a phone call. Before long, Akame was loaded, shackled, into a cramped van for a six-hour nonstop ride to a federal detention center in southern Virginia. Even with the help of attorneys, Akame was held in prisonlike conditions for three months before he was granted what immigration authorities call parole and allowed to get settled in the United States while his asylum application was processed. "I was shocked and embarrassed," Akame said. "I didn't understand if I had done something wrong."

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