CHICAGO (AP) - The Latest on teenage blogger Amos Yee’s bid for U.S. asylum (all times local):
3:15 p.m.
A teenage blogger from Singapore granted asylum to stay in U.S. has been released from immigration authorities’ custody.
Amos Yee tells The Associated Press on Tuesday in Chicago that it feels “surreal.”
Yee had been in custody since December, when he came to the U.S. to seek asylum and was detained by immigration authorities at O’Hare International Airport.
His online posts mocking and criticizing the city-state’s government twice landed him in a Singapore jail. Courts found that he had a “well-founded” fear of persecution upon return to Singapore.
He says he intends to keep making videos about Singapore politics and possibly about U.S. politics.
The 18-year-old left Kankakee County Jail outside Chicago on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after his attorneys received word that a federal immigration appeals court had sided with a Chicago immigration judge’s decision to grant him asylum. He was released from and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in downtown Chicago carrying plastic bags filled with his belongings.
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10:05 a.m.
A federal immigration appeals court has sided with a Chicago immigration judge’s decision to grant asylum to a teenage blogger from Singapore.
Attorneys for Amos Yee said Tuesday they’d received a Board of Immigration Appeals decision agreeing that the 18-year-old had fear of being persecuted upon return to Singapore.
Yee is at a county jail outside Chicago, but attorney Sandra Grossman anticipates he’ll be released soon.
His online posts mocking and criticizing the city-state’s government twice landed him in a Singapore jail. He was first detained by U.S. immigration authorities in December at O’Hare International Airport.
Department of Homeland Security attorneys had opposed the asylum bid, saying Yee’s case didn’t qualify as persecution based on political beliefs. Messages left Tuesday for DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement weren’t immediately returned.
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