Asylum-Seeker to Get $87,500

The U.S. government has agreed to pay $87,500 to a Kenyan woman who was initially spurned when she pleaded with authorities not to send her back to her homeland -- a case that could spur other asylum-seekers to sue federal authorities for alleged mistreatment, legal experts said.

Immigration officials spurned Rosebell Munyua, 36, when she arrived at San Francisco International Airport in March 2001 and forced her to return to Kenya with her then 2-year-old daughter.

Munyua was admitted six months later on a tourist visa in Houston. She was granted political asylum in September 2002 and later sued the U.S. government, contending negligence, misconduct and discrimination by government border agents.

“For me, it wasn’t about the money,” Munyua, now of Santa Rosa, Calif., said at a news conference Thursday. Munyua, a nurse’s assistant, had originally sought more than $1 million. “I wanted to make sure this didn’t happen to anybody else,” she said.

The proposed settlement was submitted in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday.

It is unclear whether Munyua’s success is unprecedented, but refugee advocates and civil rights lawyers agreed that it was significant.

“It is highly unusual for a refugee who has been turned away from a U.S. airport to actually make their way back to this country, make a case and file it,” said Eleanor Acer, director of asylum at the New York-based Human Rights First, a refugee advocacy group.

“The tragedy is the number of cases of refugees who get sent back to their home country without being heard from again,” said William Hapiuk, an attorney who worked on Munyua’s case pro bono.

U.S. government officials would not comment on the case, but the settlement states: “This agreement is entered into by the parties for the purpose of compromising disputed claims, avoiding the expenses and risks of litigation and buying peace.”

In January, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth D. Laporte issued a decision recognizing the right of refugees to sue the government for being mistreated by federal officials and for being placed in harm’s way. U.S. law requires that immigrants who request asylum upon arrival at a U.S. port must be allowed to explain their fears to an asylum officer.

Munyua said Thursday that she begged immigration officials at San Francisco airport for help, telling them that she “was scared to go home” for fear of being killed because of her political beliefs.

A member of Kenya’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Munyua said she and her husband had been persecuted for belonging to a political organization that opposed the government of former President Daniel arap Moi.

In one incident cited in her suit, Munyua said Kenyan police put plastic bags over the heads of her two children, made her husband strip and whipped him until he passed out. He eventually fled to neighboring Tanzania, the suit said. She also was beaten on occasion by police and arrived at the San Francisco airport with her right arm bandaged from a beating.

“I was so excited to get here,” recalled a weeping Munyua. “I didn’t know there was another channel I had to pass through once I got off the plane.”

Munyua said the immigration officer ignored her pleas for help, interrogated her for eight hours and made offensive statements about her being an African.

Times staff writer Ann M. Simmons reported from Los Angeles and special correspondent Adam Raney reported from San Francisco.