Give me your tired, your poor ... and the war on women

"Give me your tired, your poor ... Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." it seems at times we have forgotten these words, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

Just ask Zhenxing Jiang and her husband, Tian-Xiao Zhang. Jiang miscarried twins last year after being taken to New York to be deported. The New York Times reports:

It was a case that galvanized protests in Chinese-American communities around the United States last year and drew international attention: the pregnant Chinese woman who miscarried twins soon after she was taken by federal immigration officers from Philadelphia to New York to be deported.

This week the woman, Zhenxing Jiang, 33, was granted political asylum by an immigration judge in New York after the government unexpectedly dropped its longstanding opposition to her request. [...]

They had entered the country illegally in the mid-’90s and each applied for political asylum, with Ms. Jiang eventually contending that under China’s one-child policy, she could face forced abortion or sterilization if she were made to return with two American-born children. [...]

Ms. Jiang and her lawyers contend she suffered physical and mental abuse by immigration officers when they took her to Kennedy International Airport from the Philadelphia immigration office, where her husband and two sons were waiting in the lobby, unaware of what was happening.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials vigorously deny the lawyers’ account that Ms. Jiang was manhandled, denied food for eight hours and ridiculed when she first pleaded for medical care.

It is not disputed that shortly before her flight, an ambulance took her to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where doctors found that the two fetuses she was carrying had died.

Ms. Jiang's attorney, Theodore N. Cox, reasoned the judge's decision to grant asylum "was tantamount to acknowledging that she was mistreated.” He added that the Department of Homeland Security indicated the government no longer opposed giving Jiang asylum. Cox noted the shift was unusual, and reflected how politically embarrassing the Jiang case had become both domestically and overseas.

Women have often had difficulty gaining political asylum. There have been cases of women seeking asylum to avoid genital mutilation, yet the government has sometimes treated them as criminals.

Forced abortion or sterilization, honor killings, female genital mutilation, trafficking of women and girls, rape as a weapon of war ... is it wonder women feel under siege? The global war on women must end.