Teen faces deportation

5 August 2010 11:34 am

The teenage Christian convert who ran away to Orlando last summer will find out today if she can avoid deportation. Rifqa Bary (17) is in the country illegally from Sri Lanka.

Rifqa Bary and her family are awaiting a judge's ruling in Ohio. She wants to receive special immigration status that would allow her to stay in the US. Her attorneys say she has uterine cancer, US media reports said.

Bary made headlines last year when she hopped on a bus and came to Orlando to run away from her Muslim parents after converting to Christianity.

"I hid my Bible in my house," she said. "I would wake up in the middle of the night and cry out to God in a bathroom."

The teen argued that she was afraid she would be killed for leaving Islam.

"I'm fighting for my life," Bary said. "You guys don't understand."

But a judge in Orlando refused to rule on whether she should be returned to her parents saying it was out of his jurisdiction. The teenager was sent back to Ohio where she's been living with a foster family. The immigration status of her parents is unclear. Bary turns 18 next week.