Posted on 12/16/2011 7:44:21 PM PST by thecodont
A decade ago, Shyima Hall was smuggled into the United States as a 10-year-old slave, forced to cook and clean inside the home of a wealthy Irvine family and, at night, sleep on a squalid mattress in a windowless garage.
On Thursday, the Egyptian-born 22-year-old stood before a federal judge in Montebello with nearly 900 others and was sworn in as naturalized U.S. citizen. The ceremony capped a hard-scrabble journey that began with Hall's rescue, wound through the foster care system and ended with her living on her own, working, and with ambitions to become a federal agent.
"I went through something terrible, but right now I'm in a great place," Hall said after Thursday's citizenship ceremony at the Quiet Cannon Country Club. "I can't imagine anything greater than having my own life."
Hall's Egyptian parents sold her into slavery when she was 8 for $30 a month, according to authorities. The Cairo couple who bought her moved to Irvine two years later, smuggling Hall into the U.S. where she toiled for them and their five children until she was 13.
Hall said she worked 16 hour days, scrubbing floors, cooking meals and cleaning house, and was rarely allowed outside the spacious home. She was forced to wash her own clothes in a bucket and was forbidden from going to school. She never visited a doctor or dentist and didn't speak a word of English.
Her captors, Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim and his former wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib, berated her and occasionally slapped her around, authorities said.
"I didn't know anything about what America was about. My only hope was to go back home and live a normal life with my family, my brothers and sisters,'' she said. "That's all I wanted."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Her captors just treated her like any non-Muslim.
We welcome this girl.
She’s adorable. God bless her.
Shame on the media - AS USUAL!
/johnny
We need higher standards for who we let in. In case you did not know, the UN determines who can come to the US as a refugee, and they strongly favor Muslims. (Prior post: Muslim Refugees, Yes – Christian Refugees, No Atlas Shrugs
Yes, she will be the belle of the ball, take it from someone who knows, if you want a woman who is strong, principled, and fearless, go find a Middle Eastern woman, that is why the insecure Muslim men (AKA Saudi men afraid of women driving) have to literally keep them down the way they do, otherwise they would be the ones doing the cooking and cleaning.
A Friendly tip, going after a Mideastern girl isn't easy, many men have found their ego taken down a peg by them, so tread lightly any future suitors to this young woman.
These koranimals were so cocky they thought they could import their typical arab culture to the USA.
Well, they managed to import one of their own into the White House.
For true.
Things won’t get any better under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Especially not for women. She’s fortunate to stay in the US.
Reminds me of the Biblical story of Joseph. This young lady will go far.
Went to the Times site. There is actually someone blaming this on our free market system.
maybe they were.
A “free market” isn’t an “anything goes” market. In older days, in which a Christian consciousness was more common, strange arrangements like this “slave family” would more likely have been sniffed out.
According to the U.S. State Department, there are more than 12 million people entrapped in some form of slavery worldwide.Hall said her dream now is to become a federal agent for ICE to help crack down on human trafficking and free the enslaved.
"That's my top goal," Hall said. "I've been through it. I know I can help."
Wow! Good story. From hopeless nightmare to victorious liberty.
I did a bit of googling, and dug this up. It looks like the husband and wife were sentenced to 3 years each for human trafficking and harboring an illegal alien, forced to pay $100,000 to her in damages and back pay, and then extradited to Egypt where they were already wanted on other charges. A light sentence if you ask me.
Shyima was adopted last year [2007] by Chuck and Jenny Hall of Beaumont, Calif. Link.
My only relief is that the “family” wasn’t “American”, per se.
My relief is that she is.
GOD bless this girl.....the land of the FREE!!!!!
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