Refuge refused

International | IMMIGRATION: Efforts to keep foreign terrorists out of the United States are also closing the door to persecuted refugees | Priya Abraham

TEN MEN APPEARED AT JOSEPH'S door in Peshawar, Pakistan. They gave him two weeks to turn over his niece, Pearl, or die. Pearl had fled Afghanistan and sought refuge in her uncle's home after she became a Christian three years earlier, in 1998. Her father disowned Pearl, her mother, and five other children. Now her father had sold her—for more than $1,000—to an older mullah in Afghanistan's then-ruling Taliban regime.

Joseph was on the run himself, having become a Christian about 25 years earlier. Even before the death threats, residents in his home village in Afghanistan burned down his house when they learned he had become an "infidel" and razed his 500-tree orchard. With these new threats, the family hurried to the local protection office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to apply for refugee status.