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Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Offers New Storybook—America: A Freedom Country
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Baltimore, January 12, 2004 -"When I got off the plane, I said, 'My life is going to be protected now.’ Instead I was locked up like a criminal.I kept saying, 'This is America?’" Mekabou Fofana, a young man who fled war in Liberia, tells his heart-wrenching story in America: A Freedom Country, published by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). This book, which features powerful photographs by Steven Rubin, tells the compelling stories of 10 courageous asylum seekers who came to the United States seeking refuge from persecution in their homelands. The storybook acts as a powerful tool for church groups and advocates seeking to educate their communities about the U.S. asylum system and the harsh realities of immigration detention. It also provides policy recommendations and practical ways for individuals to help affect change. |
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"The men, women and children highlighted in America: A Freedom Country entered the United States in various places, and their experiences are diverse, but all of their stories illustrate the profound human cost of detention, and the strong need for us to reform our nation's asylum policy," says LIRS President Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr. "I am sure readers of this book will be moved to act to restore justice to our laws. I encourage Lutherans and all Americans to become advocates for change. By raising a united voice we can rectify the injustices of our current asylum system."
America: A Freedom
Country is available in a print edition for $8
per copy. The publication may be ordered by mailing a check
or money order to America: A Freedom Country, LIRS, 700 Light
Street, Baltimore, Md. 21230. To order with Visa or MasterCard,
send card number, expiration date, date of authorization and
signature to the same address. America: A Freedom
Country is also available for free download in
PDF format at www.lirs.org. Please address any inquires about
ordering to freedomcountry@lirs.org.
About LIRS (www.lirs.org)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), the U.S. Lutheran expression of service to refugees and migrants in America, works with affiliates and partners to resettle refugees, protect unaccompanied refugee children, advocate for just treatment of asylum seekers, and seek alternatives to detention for those who are incarcerated during their immigration proceedings.
About the Author
Batya Swift Yasgur is
a freelance writer and winner the 1995 Mystery Writers of America's
Robert L. Fish Award for Best First Published Story and the
Coalition of Alternatives in Jewish Education's David Dornstein
Memorial Creative Writing Award for short fiction. She is the
author of Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and
How We Escaped to Freedom and coauthor of Women at
Risk, a book about cervical cancer and the HPV virus.
About the Photographer
Steven Rubin is a freelance photographer in the Washington, D.C., area. Through the Open Society Institute in Baltimore, Rubin has guided a program that provides photo-based art therapy to torture survivors and has conducted a photographic investigation of U.S. immigration detention. The recipient of many prestigious awards, Rubin's work has been exhibited in a variety of venues throughout the United States and in France.
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