Asylum-Seeker Rejected Based On Wikipedia, Appeals Court Reverts (Threat Level)

[Drew Wilson]

The Department of Homeland Security should not use the user-generated Wikipedia to decide whether an asylum seeker can enter the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

That judicial statement of the obvious (.pdf) from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which said DHS committed no big foul in using a site editable by anyone with a computer to decide the fate of a woman named Lamilem Badasa.

DHS decided to deport Badasa after consulting Wikipedia to decide whether a Ethiopian travel document known as a laissez-passer was adequate to prove her identity.

Using the Wikipedia page as evidence, the government convinced an immigration judge that the document did not prove her identity, calling it a one-way travel document based on information provided by the applicant.

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[El Comandante]

Interestingly enough, the appeals Court indicated that had the trial court not taken Wiki into consideration as evidence it may have upheld the judges decision..... They suggest that Wiki is so inaccurate that even considering it casts doubt on the trial court's reasoning ..