Rescuing Regina
The Battle to Save a Friend from Deportation and Death
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
What is it like to be a young mother threatened with deportation to the country whose government has imprisoned you and whose soldiers have raped and tortured you? You don't want to leave your children behind, but how can you take them with you, knowing that your homeland, ruled by chaos and violence, is notorious for murdering failed asylum seekers?
Regina Bakala found herself in just this situation ten years after escaping the Congo and settling in the United States. Upon arrival, Regina had worked with an immigration lawyer, then joyfully reunited with her husband, also a Congolese torture survivor, and had two children. Life was challenging but full of hope until the night there was a knock at the door and immigration agents burst in. They forced Regina from her home as her family watched, then locked her in prison to await deportation to certain death.
In Rescuing Regina, author Josephe Marie Flynn tells Regina's powerful story—and how her husband, a pit-bull lawyer, a group of volunteers, and a feisty nun set aside political differences to galvanize a movement to save her. Revealing what she uncovered about US immigration policies and the dangers faced by those escaping war crimes, Flynn exposes an America most never see: a vast underbelly of injustice, a harsh detention and deportation system, and a frighteningly arbitrary asylum process. In their battle for justice, Regina and Josephe not only confronted dangerous obstacles but also reawakened emotions and traumas from the past. A compelling story of a quest for justice, Rescuing Regina is also a tale of friendship, faith, hope, and the transformative journey of two friends.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Flynn's eye-opening and detailed account of what it took to win asylum for Regina Bakala, who fled Mobuto's regime in Congo in 2005 "after being tortured for advocating democracy," offers an inside look at the formidable and convoluted system faced by asylum seekers in the U.S. Regina and David Bakala and their two American-born children were feeling safe, well-settled in their Milwaukee home and church as the asylum process proceeded, when Regina was taken from her home and thrust into a nightmare. Bureaucratic and juridical traps abound; it took a village (media attention, a dedicated lawyer, St. Mary's parishioners, the Milwaukee community) to secure asylum. Flynn, the Catholic nun who organized the "Save Regina" campaign, which raised funds, created public awareness, and found political support, plays a major role, but her remarkable achievement is the telling of Regina's and David's stories, while relaying her own political education and spiritual engagement. Flynn packs in all the drama of a riveting escape tale; nevertheless, the story provides an instructive account of escaping a maze built by competing jurisdictions, derelict lawyers, and harsh judges.
