Oromo doctoral student faces test of faith

Before April 6, Tekleab Shibru Gala was, as he put it, "doing something with his life."

Gala, 32, was studying for a soil sciences doctorate at the University of Minnesota, leading the choir at Oromo Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and sending money home to his parents in Ethiopia.

The problem is, Gala entered the United States illegally several years ago, and since he walked into the immigration bureau in Bloomington he's been in the Ramsey County jail.

Gala has been waiting for his chance to prove to an immigration judge that returning to his home country would subject him to persecution and possibly endanger his life. Gala has applied for political asylum in the United States.

But times have changed since Sept. 11, 2001. "Immigration (officials are) tightening down on a lot of different things," said Elizabeth Holmes, Gala's attorney. "There's more scrutiny. Asylum is a difficult type of relief to gain."

Gala entered the United States in 2001 from the Netherlands just after his temporary visa in Holland, where he earned a master's degree in soil sciences, was set to expire.

Gala said he's afraid to return to Ethiopia, where he was a university professor. "I have that kind of fear, that my life might be in jeopardy — especially since I tried to flee."

The Ethiopian government twice tried to assassinate him in the early 1990s for his affiliation with the political party of his Oromo people, Gala stated in a court affidavit. One attempt left three friends dead, he said.

Gala left Ethiopia for Holland in 1999. When he later returned to conduct research, he was forced to check in with local police every morning and evening, he said.

After arriving in America, he spent several months in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, but it wasn't until May 2002 that Gala made a connection in Minnesota.

During a trip to attend his cousin's graduation from Augsburg College, Gala surfed the Internet for educational opportunities and found soil sciences Professor Jay Bell at the U of M.

"He showed up at my door, just literally walked in off the street," Bell said. "His background was such that he's exactly what we were looking for here.

By fall 2002, Gala — who goes by his nickname "Nico" — was enrolled as a doctorate student and began studying the effect of agriculture on soil characteristics.

Gala quickly made friends, purchased a car, began an assistant teaching position and earned enough money to rent a shared room at the Minnesota Graduate Club cooperative.

"Nico hasn't paid rent for May, but everyone in the house should understand and I will say it again — his stuff will stay in his room as long as he is in the country," insisted Aicam Laacouri, a friend of Gala's and the co-op's board president.

Gala also began leading the choir at Oromo Lutheran Church in Minneapolis and found work as the weekend janitor at Roseville Lutheran Church, where pastor Hans Jorgenson described Gala's "kind manner and frequent smile."

"He's aware he made some mistakes in the way he came in," Jorgenson said. "For him this is a test of his faith and trusts that whatever way it happens that God will be there for him."

A judge reopened Gala's asylum case last week. Officials had closed his case when Gala failed to appear for a March 29 hearing and sent him a notice to prepare for deportation April 6, the day Gala voluntarily appeared at the Bloomington immigration bureau.

Gala said his Washington, D.C., lawyer, to whom the letter was apparently sent, never told him about the March 29 hearing.

Forty percent of Ethiopians whose asylum cases were heard in U.S. immigration courts in fiscal year 2003 gained asylum status, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review.

"I was trying to go to school and build a career and contribute to the science something in my life," Gala said during a videoconference interview at the jail. He broke into tears. "That was my hope and my dream."

---