Men whose wives were forcibly sterilized under China's coercive population control policies are entitled to political asylum in the United States, the federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Tuesday.
The groundbreaking ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could greatly expand the number of people able to stay in the United States on the grounds that they were persecuted by China's population policies. It applies to cases in California and eight other Western states.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday March 12, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 99 words Type of Material: Correction
Asylum case -- The headline on an article in Wednesday's California section about a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision on an asylum case incorrectly stated that a man whose wife had been sterilized in China had won the right to asylum in the United States. The court decision said that men in such circumstances generally should be entitled to asylum. But the man who brought the case, Quili Qu, is not eligible for asylum because he missed a legal deadline. Under the decision, he would be allowed to stay in the country under a different legal status.
"Involuntary sterilization irrevocably strips persons of one of the important liberties we possess as humans: our reproductive freedom," Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee, wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel.
"Therefore, one who has suffered involuntary sterilization, either directly or because of the sterilization of a spouse, is entitled," without having to prove anything else, to refuge in this country, he wrote.
Judges Kim M. Wardlaw and Richard A. Paez joined his opinion; both are appointees of President Clinton.
Tuesday's ruling is the latest by the 9th Circuit dealing with the domestic legal consequences of China's population policies.
Starting in 1981, China enforced a strict policy limiting families to one child. Forced abortions, sterilizations and IUD insertions became widely publicized features of that policy.
Although the policy has been relaxed in at least some parts of the country, monetary penalties and other forms of coercion continue to lead to involuntary abortions and sterilizations in China, U.S. government officials say.
In 1996, Congress passed a bill granting refugee status to up to 1,000 people a year who can prove that their nation's population control policies coerced them.
The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service, has been flooded with asylum claims since then, and there has been little consistency to the resolution of the cases, said Susan Greenhalgh, a professor of anthropology at UC Irvine who is an expert on China's population policies.
The latest 9th Circuit ruling was particularly unusual because it was the husband who applied for asylum, she said. The wife is still in China, and there is nothing in the decision about her current situation.
The plaintiff in the case, Quili Qu, came to the United States in 1997 on a valid visa for a businessman. In 2001, he applied for asylum.
