Customer Reviews

Asylum Denied: A Refugee's Struggle for Safety in America

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For those of you looking for a good summer read to take to the beach, or just a great book to snuggle up with on a rainy day, I highly recommend opening up the pages of Asylum Denied. It is both informative and inspiring as it tells the story of David Kenney Ngaruri, the political asylee who struggled to stay in America. Although the book is currently being passed around law schools, as the new go-to-guide for asylum law, I am sure it will not be long before it makes the bestseller stands at nation-wide bookstores or grabs a spot on Oprah's booklist. Asylum Denied, written by two authors, the above-mentioned David Kenney Ngaruri and Philip Schrag, the professor of law at Georgetown University, serves both as a law manual and as a heart-warming story of adventure, perseverance, and love. Unlike most law-related books, it reads very smoothly and catches your attention from the first page. Even if this is not the usual type of book you read, I urge you to give it a try. If the face on the cover of the book is not enough to convince you to read it, then I hope this review will.

I read this book for my Immigration Law class at school, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed the book. Before I read the book, I was afraid that it would be a boring book about the technicalities of an individual's application for asylum, the process, and the outcome. Although that may be one accurate summary of Asylum Denied, the book actually has more substance and story to go along with the bare asylum application process than I expected. I really liked how the book began with vivid descriptions of Jeff's ordeal in a water cell. It was disturbing and confusing because the reader does not yet know why he's there at this point, but it is the perfect opening to the book that hooks in skeptical readers like me. I forgot that I was reading a book for a law school class. Instead, I was just reading a really good book because I wanted to.

The book did not disappoint me after the initial opening scene. It continued to tell the life story of Jeff, which I found interesting and gripping, giving me a sense of who Jeff is and how he would later end up in a situation where he needed to apply for asylum in the US. Notwithstanding the title, this book is really about the whole life of Jeff, not just his application, and subsequent denial, of asylum. I was supposed to read this book with immigration law in my mind, but I could not help but be engrossed in the story and hurried through the pages describing the substantive law and the asylum process, slowing down only when the pages turned back to the story. I did however pay attention to the retelling of the oral arguments in the 4th circuit, only because I found the judges so obtuse that I was infuriated. How could they not understand that it was his state of mind before he left for Kenya that matters and not whether he was actually tortured again when he returned to Kenya that matters?

I understand that the book was written by Jeff and his lawyer, thus, it would only be natural that readers would sympathize with their story more than they would with the typical asylum applicants. However, the book did do a good job illustrating vividly what a lengthy process application for asylum is, what it entails, the emotions that the people involved can suffer, and what could be at stake for every asylum applicant. This was a really good book to see the law in a real life situation.

Although I read this book for a class, I would definitely recommend it to others as a pleasure read. Although there are parts of the book that are a little dense (the parts describing the law and asylum process), they are not hard to get through as they are integral to understanding the hardships that Jeff had to go through. Jeff's story is definitely interesting enough to keep you reading until the end.

This is an eloquent and heartbreaking tale of one immigrant's journey throught the U.S. Immigration system. It reads like a John Grisham novel although the story is sadly true. The author, a 7-foot tall Kenyan, was a political prisioner in Kenya for his role as a labor organizer. He faced imprisonment and torture and was ultimately able to escape Kenya via the promise of a basketball scholarship in the United States. In his quest for political asylum in the U.S. he encouters heartless judges,corrupt officials, State Department bureaucrats, a beautiful "witch", kidnapping rebels, interpid law students and a dedicated and brilliant law profressor (his co-author). I couldn't put it down and felt a mixture of outrage at the U.S. immigration system while in awe of the power of the human spirit to overcome the most dauting of odds.

This is an amazing book that makes plain the unbelievable complexity of immigration law. Anyone with an interest in immigration policy should read this book.

I read this book before entering law school and had the chance to meet the author at an orientation event. I found it to be incredibly well written and emotionally touching through the struggles he experienced and would recommend it to others.

I found the book a moving story of David Kenny's trials in establishing his right to remain in the U.S. But more than a story of asylum, it is a story of optimism as David Kenny, his wife, family, and legal team work together to find a way to prevent him from harm in his native Kenya. There were many emotional scenes in the book and I found myself impressed by David's open spirit and his devotion to his friends. The love story within the book is also funny, spunky and inspiring. David's narrative let's use see parts of America very clearly from our assumption that all Kenyan's can play basketball to how many people have personal hand guns and are not afraid to display them proudly--a display that shocks people from nations where guns are only in the hands of the government or the criminals.


The book is very frank about the complexity of the law and the obstacles that prevent many immigrants, even those with attorneys, from securing legal status in the U.S. Many people are critical of our legal system and wonder why more people don't have legal status. Perhaps reading this book will help them understand how difficult the legal and bureaucratic hurdles can be. I am an immigration law professor and hope to use this book in teaching but I recommend it to anyone with an interest of the amazing journeys modern day refugees make.

David Kenney and Phil Schrag have opened many windows into the world of law and the emotional experience of law's rigidity.

This book is the fascinating, inspiring and enlightening true story of a young man who was a political refugee from Kenya. He came to the US, graduated from college,and went on to law school here. He married a US citizen and they had a child. Seems like it would be a sure thing he could stay.....but not so fast! This is the story of his amazing struggle and shows how our system works. (Actually, not so well sometimes.) Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good read!
C. Bates, Eugene, Oregon

I couldn't set this book down. He literally goes through every possibility, facing years of uncertainty, and still keeps trying - and graduates college and law school in the meantime. I cannot imagine going through what he went through in Kenya, then coming to the US as a safe haven, and facing such a drawn-out, uphill battle simply to stay.

His story is not always easy to read but it is very engaging, even if, like me, you are not a lawyer or law student. David Kenney Ngaruri and his friends and colleagues in this book are very inspirational.

This is a gripping story of one man's journey from persecution in his home country to being caught in the Kafkaesque U.S. immigration bureaucracy. It is a vital read for anyone who wants to see the system from the inside out. Read this book and tell your neighbors about it.

You can't believe this could happen to someone. But it did. And it happened here. This is a wonderfully readable story of the law, the US justice system, and a journey. Mr. Kenney and Mr. Schrag saw the story from such completely different viewpoints that it's hard to believe they could combine them, but they did. They take us on a ride through Mr. Kenney's life, through the asylum "system" in the US, and end up with a combination of defeat and triumph that's hard to believe. It's our good fortune to be able to go along for the ride.