US: Gay Ghanaian man granted asylum

Wednesday, a federal immigration court granted asylum to Amidu Fredrick Sinayor.

Since February, Sinayor has been held in a detention centre in El Paso after a dangerous month long trip to reach the US.

Nancy Oretskin, an attorney with the Southwest Asylum and Migration Institute who represented Sinayor, told BuzzFeed that they are extremely pleased with the verdict.

She said: “He’s ecstatic. He doesn’t know what to do. I’m ecstatic. We won, and you know it’s hard to win these cases.”

Sinayor left Ghana after being attacked numerous times by anti-LGBT gangs. He is just one of many African asylum seekers that have made the long and dangerous journey through South America to reach the US.

According to the University of Syracuse’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, between the years 2007 and 2012 judges at the El Paso detention centre rejected more than 87% of asylum cases.

Sinayor’s case, however, was not heard by an El Paso judge, but a Miami judge that President Obama flew to Texas to help with a backlog of asylum cases.

Sinayor will remain in the Texas detention centre until his asylum status is fully processed.

This week, activists called for the immediate release of a transgender woman being held in an immigrant detention centre, following reports that she had been raped by her cellmate.

Earlier this month a group of LGBT activists staged a sit-in on Capitol Hill, saying they wouldn’t leave until the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus until the caucus issues a statement urging President Obama to include LGBT populations in potential executive action on immigration.

• Nov 29 2023

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