Unbelievable -- Stemberger and his legal eagles threw Rifqa's real defense under the bus and everyone along with it (he banned Rifqa from talking to her good friend, Pastor Jamal Jivanjee) for special juvenile immigration status.
CAIR and Rifqa's devout Muslim parents are running the clock on Rifqa. John Stemberger, who is still directing Rifqa’s legal strategy, recently wrote: “No lawyer who understands dependency law agrees that seeking political Asylum in the US makes any sense.…Rifqa’s immigration status can be resolved as a Dependent of the State of Ohio without any Asylum claims.”
Wrong. Rifqa is an apostate, and her life is in mortal danger because the penalty for apostasy is death. Apostasy asylum should have been Rifqa’s safety. They should have applied for it last August or December or March ........... They should have applied for it yesterday.
What Tarazi is doing is running out the clock so that Rifqa is without immigration status when she turns 18 this August. Will authorities then deport her? There is no way of knowing for sure, but CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated senior levels at the State Department so deeply that it is a distinct possibility. Certainly that new office in the State Department devoted to outreach to the Islamic world and reporting directly to Secretary Clinton might deem it “helpful” to send her back. I think that’s what CAIR and the Barys want: for the whole family to go back to Sri Lanka, which was the plan after members of the Noor mosque spied on Rifqa and told her parents of the conversion. The bags were packed.
Notice the AP headline - as if Rifqa's deportation is a fair accompli and has been all along. Could the media be more contemptuous.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Attorneys for an Ohio teenager who converted to Christianity and ran away to Florida say her Muslim parents are standing in the way of her effort to fight deportation.
Of course they are. She will "disappear" in Sri Lanka, and the family honor will be restored.
Seventeen-year-old Rifqa Bary is an illegal immigrant and does not want to be returned to her native Sri Lanka.
Her parents are illegal and never presented their papers. They perjured themselves numerous times in front of the court, but neither the justice system nor the media will insult Islam by reporting the truth.
Her attorneys asked a judge in Columbus on Monday to sign an order stating that reunification with her parents is not possible by her 18th birthday in August. The order would allow Bary, who is in foster care, to apply for special immigration status without her parents' consent.
The judge declined to issue the order without first holding a hearing next month.
The attorney for Bary's parents says they have filed an immigration application for the whole family.
UPDATE: Much more info here:
A teenage girl who converted to Christianity and ran away from home is being blocked by her Muslim parents from fighting the possibility of deportation, her attorney told a judge Monday in an ongoing custody dispute.
[...]
Her attorney, Angela Lloyd, asked a judge to sign an order stating that reunification with her parents is not possible by her 18th birthday in August.
The order would allow Bary, who is in foster care, to apply for special immigration status without her parents' consent.
Omar Tarazi, an attorney for the parents, objected, telling the judge that he had been unaware of Bary's separate maneuver to apply to an immigration court. He said the parents previously filed an immigration application for the whole family.
Franklin County Juvenile Court Judge Elizabeth Gill declined to issue the order without first holding a hearing next month. She also declined to remove a gag order that prevents attorneys from discussing the case publicly.
Bary and her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, have agreed to follow a counseling plan drawn up by a county child welfare agency to try to resolve the family's conflict. It requires both sides to work with individual counselors and to try to attend join counseling.
But a face-to-face meeting remains unlikely any time soon.
Jim Zorn, a children's services attorney, told the judge that Bary continues to believe that a reconciliation with her parents is impossible. Bary's counselor has indicated that contact with her parents would be premature, he said.
Bary has also complained that her parents have not responded to an emotional letter sent to them through a counselor that explains why their relationship broke down, Lloyd said.
The letter was more like a list of 20 questions that felt like a backdoor interrogation prepared by attorneys, Tarazi said. It included questions such as, "Why don't I have happy memories of my childhood?" he said.
The parents want to respond but also want assurances that Bary's attorneys are not interfering with the process, Tarazi said.
Judge Gill ordered both attorneys to stay away from the counselors.
UPDATE: Eyewitness on scene Atlas reader Heartland Patriot reports:
The status conference for Rifqa Bary’s case started at 9:44 AM in Franklin County Juvenile Court hearing room 63, Judge Elizabeth Gill presiding. While Mr. and Mrs. Bary attended, Rifqa was not present.
Judge Gill states that while she normally attempts to make prompt rulings, she has not done so on the motion regarding the gag order. She realizes they are waiting for the ruling, but says she will not yet make a ruling on the order. Jim Zorn, Franklin County Children Services attorney, gives an update on the counseling. He said the parents had sent a letter to Rifqa, and that Rifqa had replied with a lengthy response. He said that Chris Neumath was the counselor for Mr. and Mrs. Bary, and Jennifer Dorn was counseling Rifqa Bary. While the parents desired a face to face meeting, he quoted Dorn: “The suggestion of face to face contact is premature.” Zorn said Rifqa is adjusting to foster care, attending school, getting good grades, will graduate in two weeks, and is seeing friends.
Omara Tarazi says their impression is that this would be a back and forth shuttle diplomacy with the parties in different rooms. Says Rifqa’s letter to parents was not written, but rather dictated and delivered verbally. Says it was a list of complaints about childhood (why don’t I remember being loved, hugged, etc.). Says it was very lengthy and personal, and while the parents had composed a lengthy letter in reply they had not sent it as they felt Rifqa’s letter better suited to a response verbally in person by the parents to Rifqa. Tarazi said the parents have cooperated in every way and are ready for a face to face meeting. Says the process is too slow week by week. He alleged that Rifqa’s lawyers were reviewing the correspondence.
Angela Lloyd states that Rifqa has been doing everything the court required. She says Rifqa struggled to write the letter with Jennifer Dorn. Says Rifqa has tried and it is a struggle to talk about what has happened and that it is very hard when there is no response from her parents after she poured out her heart. She says Rifqa doesn’t understand the silence from her parents. Lloyd said that she did not review or discuss with Rifqa any of the correspondence between Rifqa and her parents.
Lloyd says Rifqa is on an immigration timeline, and that Jennifer Dorn sent a letter suggesting she doesn’t see reunification by 18. Lloyd says that Rifqa is running out of time; that by the time she turns 18 she will not have any immigration relief.
Lloyd wraps up by saying Rifqa has communicated in good faith, and asks Judge Gill to address Lloyd’s oral motion regarding Rifqa’s immigration status.
Judge Gill asks Tarazi if he has seen Lloyd’s motion. Tarazi responds that he has. Tarazi says that before Rifqa came back from Florida Rifqa’s parents had retained an immigration attorney and filed an application for the whole family. Tarazi says the application required fingerprinting, and claims Lloyd had objected to Rifqa doing it on the same day as her parents. Tarazi goes on to further detail other claims of objections by Lloyd to aspects of the process. Tarazi says they received a letter from immigration last week wanting additional information for June 14.
Tarazi charges that Lloyd believes she is Rifqa’s immigration attorney; that while he knows Lloyd is a dependency attorney, he doesn’t know if she is also an immigration attorney. As far as he is concerned he states his belief that Rifqa already has an immigration attorney.
Lloyd asks for permission to respond to Tarazi’s statement. Judge Gill denies her request and asks for Zorn’s views. Zorn states that Franklin County Children’s Services has no position on Rifqa’s immigration status. Judge Gill asks for input from Bonnie Vangeloff, Rifqa’s guardian ad litim. Vangeloff said it was her belief that it is in Rifqa’s best interest to attain legal immigration status.
Judge Gill then stated she was not accepting Lloyd’s motion today.
Lloyd interjects, stands up and addresses the judge in response to Tarazi’s earlier charges. Lloyd said that she had called Tarazi to discuss immigration, but he refused to return her calls. Lloyd states that she is an immigration attorney. She says an application for a family cannot include a child unless the child is in the custody of the parents.
Judge Gill says she does not sign entries, and she will not make a finding without a hearing. Lloyd asks for an expedited hearing. Judge Gill says she isn’t sure she will grant that.
Judge Gill then proceeds to order that none of the attorneys except Zorn and Vangeloff will have contact with the counselors and that the lawyers should not be screening contacts between Rifqa and her parents. She expresses her understanding after reviewing what was filed in the courtroom as to why Rifqa would not want her parents to have a physical letter from her. She tells Lloyd to go down to assignment to get a date for her oral motion; instructs that it be a basic motion only, without any attachments.
The judge then reiterates her point that the only people who should be advising Rifqa and her parents regarding the reunification counseling are the counselors.
The conference ends at 10:09 AM.
