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Adelaide AbankwahAdelaide Abankwah was a name Ghanaian Regina Norman Danson took when she tried to immigrate into USA as a refugee fleeing female circumcision and seeking political asylum. "Adelaide Abankwah" appeared in USA in 1997 from Ghana. She claimed that she had inherited the position of a female chief of her tribe after her mother had died. The position, however, demanded that she would be a virgin. She had fallen in love with a Christian and if she would go back, the tribe would discover she was not a virgin any more and she would be forced to submit to genital mutilation. Hence she applied for Asylum in March 29 1997. US INS officials suspected that her passport had been forged or otherwise altered, had her detained and begun proceedings to expel her. Abankwah was detained for over two years in Queens when her application for asylum was twice rejected, first by an immigration judge and 1999 by the Board of Immigration Appeals. Eventually INS investigation determined that the "Abankwah" was an impostor; Her real name was Regina Norman Danson. She had adopted the name of another woman who was living in Maryland and whose passport had been stolen in Ghana. She had previously worked in a hotel in Ghana. Danson admitted that she had given a wrong name but that her story was still true. Further inquiries from Ghana showed that her mother, who had never been a tribal leader, was still alive. Immigration court also noted that Ghana had declared female circumcision illegal in 1994 and it had never been widespread in there. The case came into attention of feminist and human rights activists who began to lobby for her release. They included actress Julia Roberts and the US First Lady Hillary Clinton. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in July 1999 and granted Danson asylum. INS continued to investigate and found "overwhelming evidence" of fraud. The justice department was still hesitant to pursue a fraud conviction because of possible public furor and bad publicity but indicted her in 2001. Real Abankwah cooperated with INS to have the case cleared. The fraud trial began in January 14 2002. Tribal Chief Nana Kwa Bonko testified that Danson was not in the tribe's royal succession and that they did not practice female circumcision. Abankwah, Adelaide
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