At the age of 17, Fauziya Kassindja fled her origin country of Togo and sought asylum in the United States to escape a forced polygamous marriage and imminent female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). She went through Ghana and Germany before arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, where she immediately requested asylum. Kassindja was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) until 1996. Although an Immigration Judge initially found Kassindja "excludable as an intending immigrant, denied her applications for asylum and withholding of deportation, and ordered her excluded and deported from the United States" in 1995, Kassindja was unanimously granted asylum in June 1996 by the Board of Immigration Appeals, setting national precedent and establishing gender-based persecution as grounds for seeking asylum in the U.S. Following the case, Kassindja and Miller-Muro co-authored a memoir, published by Random House, titled "Do They Hear You When You Cry" (1998).