U.S. Bill Named for Iranian Deported to Panama Aims to Shield Asylum Seekers
Four months after the Trump administration deported Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old Iranian Christian convert, to Panama before she could seek asylum for fear of religious persecution, she is still living in limbo.
A 90-day humanitarian visa granted by the Panamanian government will run out in two weeks. Every day, she says, she wonders which country will provide her permanent refuge. Iran considers converting from Islam to any other religion a crime punishable by death.
On Tuesday, new U.S. legislation inspired by Ms. Ghasemzadeh will be introduced in Congress by Representative Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian-American Democratic lawmaker from Arizona. Called the Artemis Act, the bill seeks to prohibit the expedited removal of individuals fleeing countries that the State Department says persecute religious minorities — and ensure they have the chance to claim asylum in a U.S. immigration court.
Though Ms. Ansari says she expects widespread support from Democrats and has reached out to Republican in hopes of generating bipartisan support, experts acknowledge that the bill has little chance of passing given that Republicans hold the majority of votes in the chamber.
Mr. Trump campaigned on the promise to reverse the flow of migrants crossing the southern border and to carry out widespread deportations. Republican lawmakers would not be inclined to endorse any move to restrict Mr. Trump's immigration policy.
Still, the symbolism is significant for Ms. Ghasemzadeh and 10 other Iranian Christians deported to Panama in February and eventually released from a detention camp on the outskirts of the Darién jungle. They said in interviews on Monday that they feel 'seen and heard' at the highest level of American politics, though still trapped in Panama. Christian advocacy groups have taken up their cause.
'I am not sure I will ever see America again, but I want to know this won't happen to anyone else,' Ms. Ghasemzadeh said in an interview on Monday from a hotel in Panama City. 'This would a bigger win for me.'
Ms. Ansari said she was inspired by Ms. Ghasemzadeh's courage and story. She became the de facto face of about a hundred migrants that the United States sent to Panama this year — shackled, forced onto a military plane, held in a hotel and then detained in a jungle camp. She spoke up out about their plight in a viral social media post and to the international news media.
'Without Artemis herself being so apt with social media and sharing her story with the world and the reporting around it, this would not exist,' Ms. Ansari said in an interview on Thursday. .
The bill, Ms. Ansari said, seeks to uphold laws that the Trump administration has ignored in its deportations. Ms. Ansari plans to share a video of a recent virtual conversation with Ms. Ghasemzadeh so that other lawmakers can hear directly from her.
Immigration lawyers say the law requires immigration official to give migrants a 'fear interview' — a process in which they present their cases and provide evidence about why they fear being deported to their home countries. If they pass the interview, they would be referred to an immigration judge for a full asylum hearing.
'Artemis and the majority of people sent to Panama and Costa Rica were expelled without the fear interview and essentially with no process at all,' said Ian Kysel, an associate clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School and one of the lawyers representing the group for free. He said on Monday the bill was 'a refreshing pro-asylum act.'
In the months since the deportation flight to Panama, the Trump administration sent Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration planned to fly migrants to Libya, but lawyers for some detained immigrants claimed that people from countries like Vietnam were targeted for potential deportation and asked a federal court to block the effort. The Supreme Court also ruled after one challenge that the U.S. government needed to allow migrants time to fight their deportations under the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.
As for those sent to Panama, Silvia Serna, a Mexican immigration lawyer involved in the case, said that about half of the hundred or so migrants had left Panama, most of them for Mexico. She said 32 were still in a gymnasium turned shelter outside Panama City; 21 — mostly families with children — were living in a hotel provided by UNICEF; and six women were housed in a church shelter.
Mohammand Hanifi, an Iranian Christian convert who along with his wife, Mona, and 8-year-old son was deported to Panama on the same flight as Ms. Ghasemzadeh, said he had considered leaving for Mexico or Brazil, but that the hardest part was not knowing what would happen next. For now, their son is attending an American school on a scholarship in Panama and learning to speak English and Spanish.
Ms. Ghasemzadeh said that if Panama extended the humanitarian visa for the group, with permission to work, she wanted to start building her life. Her biggest worry is being deported to Iran.
One option, her lawyer told her, is to apply for asylum in Panama.
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