When a 17-year-old Afghan high school student recently abandoned Colorado for Canada in a bid for asylum, he dramatically raised his chances for staying in North America.

The likelihood of winning asylum in the U.S. for Mesbah Habibi or any other immigrant is 19 percent, according to a Syracuse University study.

In Canada, it's 40 percent to 45 percent for all nationalities, and 69 percent for Afghans.

Habibi follows 8,188 people who left the U.S. to request asylum in Canada last year, according to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board.

In fact, Habibi's decision is "an absolutely everyday occurrence," said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Habibi spent the school year at Columbine High School, participating in track and field and working on the student newspaper. He was due to return home in June to Herat, in western Afghanistan. That city has recently seen medical and factory workers go on strike to protest a rise in kidnappings and terrorism.

The young man disappeared from an out-of-state airport after a meeting with other exchange students. The next day he e-mailed friends and his host family to say he was fine and in Canada. Neither he nor his host family responded to requests for interviews.

But winning permission to stay in the U.S. would have been tough.

The U.S. deports asylum seekers so often that a Canadian judge has ruled that the U.S. is not safe for refugees, and therefore, asylum seekers entering from the U.S. must be allowed into Canada.

In winning that ruling, the Canadian Council for Refugees argued that "the United States, a nation founded by people fleeing repression, (has turned) into a country of bureaucratic walls and mazes where victims are sent back to their tormentors or thrown into U.S. jails alongside criminals pending a judgment on asylum."

The court's decision has been stayed pending appeal. But Habibi was allowed into Canada because he is from one of six exempt countries. Canada has a moratorium on rejecting refugees from those six, so Habibi enjoys another protection for now.

The exempt countries are Afghanistan, Iraq, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti and Zimbabwe.

Denver immigration attorney Jeff Joseph says the U.S. standard for asylum is very high. War is not a sufficient reason. Refugees must prove they were persecuted, or will be if they return. The grounds must be race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a social group. And this must have been "at the hands of the government" or people the government can't control, Joseph said.

Many refugees literally flee, and thus don't have proof of what happened to them, he said. So a Nigerian woman might be able to prove genital mutilation with a medical exam, but she does not have proof the government did it.

The number of refugees and asylum seekers welcomed by the U.S. has dropped from a peak of 170,000 in 1992 to 65,000 in 2006.

imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438

U.S. termed unsafe for refugees

Michael Phelan, a Canadian judge, ruled last year that the U.S. is not safe for refugees. The ruling, which was stayed pending appeal, was based on U.S practices such as:

* Jailing some people requesting asylum, including families with children.

* Deportation to countries that torture, including a case of an innocent Canadian deported from the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured.

* Harsh treatment and secret detention of suspected terrorists and reliable reports of torture, in violation of the Convention on Torture.

* A ban on asylum for anyone who has given material support to terrorism - even if under coercion, such as paying extortion or ransom for a kidnapping.

Youth Exchange and Study Program

* What is it? A U.S. State Department program designed to let students learn about America and develop leadership skills to take home, and teach Americans about other countries.

* How many students are involved? 750 students from 32 countries have been involved, including many Muslim students who live with host families for up to a year in the U.S.