Adelaide Abankwah
Adelaide Abankwah was a pseudonym taken by Ghanaian Regina Norman Danson when she tried to gain asylum in the United States, claiming to be fleeing female genital cutting and seeking political asylum.
Life
Birth
Regina Norman Danson is believed to have been born around 1971 in Biriwa, Central Ghana.1999
Abankwah was detained for over two years in the privately operated Queens Detention Facility in Jamaica, Queens, New York, when her application for asylum was twice rejected, first by an immigration judge, and then in 1999 by the Board of Immigration Appeals.Eventually, the INS investigation determined that the "Abankwah" was an impostor. Her real name was Regina Norman Danson. She had adopted the name of another Ghanaian woman who was living in Maryland and whose passport had been stolen in Ghana. Danson admitted that she had given a wrong name but that her story was still true, insisting her mother was deceased. Further inquiries from Ghana showed that her mother, who had never been a tribal leader, was still alive.
The case came to the attention of feminist and human rights activists who began to lobby for her release. They included actresses Julia Roberts and Vanessa Redgrave and then First lady Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem with Equality Now. 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.