U.S. Supreme Court Considers Marriage Asylum Case
SCOTUS Blog has this commentary discussing a case that the Supreme Court is being asked to review: Yang v. Mukasey, No. 07-756. SCOTUS describes the facts:
In Yang’s petition filed by Charles Rothfeld of the firm Mayer Brown, with the assistance of the Yale Law School Supreme Court Clinic, Yang relates a story overflowing with hot-button issues. The ordeal began in 2000 when Yang’s “wife,” Jiang Hui Ling, became pregnant-a violation of China’s family planning laws as the couple was not legally married. (Only men over age 22 and women over 20 can get marriage licenses in China; Yang and Ling were 20 and 17 at the time.)
The couple unsuccessfully attempted to hide the pregnancy from Chinese officials, who forcibly took Ling to a hospital and aborted her 8-month-old fetus. According to the petition, Yang had a “vocal confrontation with . . . officials” at the hospital, but he ultimately “managed to escape” and fled to the United States on a fake passport.