BIG WALL, WIDE OPEN GATE:

U.S. Grants Asylum to Refugees From North Korea (Associated Press, May 7, 2006)

Six refugees from North Korea, including four women who say they were victims of sexual slavery or forced marriages, have fled to the United States, a senator said yesterday.

The group is the first from North Korea to be given official refugee status since passage of a 2004 law that makes it easier for North Koreans to apply for such status.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said the six refugees arrived at an undisclosed U.S. location Friday night from a Southeast Asian nation. He would not identify which nation they came from because of worries about security for their families and to avoid diplomatic complications with the country that sent them.

"This is a great act of compassion by the United States and the other countries involved," said Brownback, a co-sponsor of the law. He said that the refugees' arrival in the United States showed "the act is working" by making the refugees' human rights a part of U.S. policy toward North Korea.

Best of all, the nativists won't mind because they aren't Mexican.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 7, 2006 8:00 AM