Woman Facing Deportation Gets Temporary Reprieve (AP c/o WJZ-Baltimore, MD)

Woman Facing Deportation Gets Temporary Reprieve

BLADENSBURG, Md. (AP) ―

A pregnant survivor of the civil war in Sierra Leone who's facing deportation will have her baby at home, thanks in part to the intervention of Maryland's two U.S. senators.

Senators Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin, along with Yale Law School students who have taken up the cause of Mahawa Conde, wrote to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and asked that she be released temporarily, citing her long history of being abused.

Conde was released this week and will remain out of jail for three months.

"I feel so good. I'm nine months pregnant," said Conde, 35, who lives in Bladensburg with her husband and two children and is due to give birth later this month.

"Senator Cardin is glad she will be home after giving birth," said his spokeswoman, Sue Walitsky.
Conde was enslaved for two years during the civil war that ravaged her home country in the 1990s. She was repeatedly gang-raped by Revolutionary United Front rebels and subjected to forcible genital mutilation, said Michael Tan, a Yale law student who has helped with her case.

"I was kidnapped for two years," Conde said. "I was a sex slave. They beat me. I lost all my teeth at 24."

She's lived in the United States since 1998 and said that while she does not have a green card, she pays all her taxes. She faces deportation after pleading guilty to stealing from her employer; Conde said the case stems from a misunderstanding over what she considered a gift.

Tan said Conde did not understand the ramifications of the plea.

The law students still hope to prevent Conde from being deported.

"This is my home now," Conde said. "If I go back to Sierra Leone, I'm going to be killed."