A Journey of 26 Years

This picture tells only part of the story. At left is Victor Cheng, our Immigration Legal Program supervising attorney. At right (blurred intentionally) is his Bangladeshi client. They have just emerged from her citizenship interview and are standing in front of the federal building that houses the immigration agency and immigration court in New York. This is the high point of her life. Her journey has been unimaginably harrowing.

At age 11, she was beaten in front of villagers for sympathizing with a Christian classmate. At age 15, she was forced to marry a man who beat, raped, and tortured her for over two decades. He knew the Bangladeshi government would not protect a woman from gender violence. Fearing for her life, she fled to the US.

Arriving in JFK, she gravitated toward a taxi driver who spoke her native tongue. He repaid her trust in him by locking her in a room for over a year and abusing her. Two other men abused her, promising to help her find some type of housing.

They knew they could get away with abusing, raping, and torturing her because she was an undocumented immigrant without permanent immigrant status. She was unaware of her options. Had she been in the process of applying, she would have held a quasi-status.

Originally Muslim, she had a conversion moment in the US and accepted Christianity as her faith. At church, she met a man and married him. They later divorced. She also met former LSSNY President and CEO Rev. Dr. Dave Benke, who referred her to LSSNY’s Immigration Legal Program.

LSSNY attorneys helped her apply for asylum and seek protection under the Violence Against Women Act. An immigration judge granted her the ability to remain in the US and then to become a Lawful Permanent Resident. Not settling for this, she applied to become a US citizen, studying for the exam and passing. She now lives in peace, knowing that she can remain in the US where gender violence against women is punishable and there is freedom of religion.?

Recently, she returned to Bangladesh to visit her mother and son, who she had not seen for 26 years. When she fled on short notice, she left her son with her parents. A tween at the time, he is now close to 40 years old.

#ImmigrantHeritageMonth