UMCOR Attorney Wins Asylum Case: 9th Circuit Court Grants Appeal

Posted: July 26, 2004

Mang Hua Khup the last Burmese asylum seeker waiting in Guam. Credit: R. Wresch

A man without a country, and the last Burmese asylum seeker in Guam, is a step closer to asylum in the United States, thanks to a ruling published July 16 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

Arguing the case of Mang Hau Khup was T.J. Mills, attorney for United Methodist Committee on Relief. UMCOR is the international humanitarian aid and development arm of the church.

Mr. Khup had fled Burma, or Myanmar as it is now known, first to Malaysia, then to Guam, in his bid to avoid arrest for his activities as a Christian pastor. UMCOR first connected with Mr. Khup at an asylum law clinic in Maite, Guam. Mr. Khup was one of a thousand displaced Burmese whose presence in Guam as asylum seekers resulted from a one-time visa waiver offered by the US protectorate. Mr. Khup's case languished as, one after another, other Burmese received okays on their petitions for asylum.

Initially an immigration judge declared Mr. Khup ineligible for asylum or for any other protections guaranteed to qualifying refugees. The US government sentenced him to prison. UMCOR's first action on behalf of Mr. Khup secured his release from jail.

In effect, the ruling of the appeals court ends Mr. Khup's three-year wait for asylum because it directs the lower court to reconsider his petition in light of "well-founded fear" of both past and future persecution.

In an early-morning telephone call Mr. Khup learned from Mr. Mills that his appeal had been successful. A Seventh Day Adventist minister, he cried, "Praise the Lord!" He hopes eventually to reunite with his wife and son, whom he has not seen for nine years.

The court ruled that the arrest, torture, and killing of one of Mr. Khup's colleagues in ministry in Burma were grounds for believing that Mr. Khup faced a similar fate if he returned to Burma.

Mr. Khup himself had been subject to scrutiny by the military. As he worshiped in a church in 1990, soldiers stopped the service and forced Mr. Khup and other worshipers at gunpoint to carry heavy military provisions for 20 miles. According to Mr. Khup, the Burmese government opposes the practice of Christianity.

As a specialist in immigration law, Mr. Mills has counseled some 1,000 clients on their rights as immigrants or asylum seekers under UMCOR's Justice for Our Neighbors legal services program. Established in response to toughened immigration rules following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the program provides free legal counsel to immigrants in 18 United Methodist churches around the country.

But Mr. Mills does not usually find himself in court as a trial attorney. After being invited by the court to present oral arguments on behalf of Mr. Khup, he spent some 500 hours in developing the appeal. "It was like going from the church choir to Carnegie Hall," he said. According to Mr. Mills, the impact of this case could pressure the Board of Immigration Appeals, a government agency that reviews asylum petitions, to conduct more thorough reviews of cases.

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