Teen Christian Convert Fights Deportation

Attorneys for an Ohio teenager who converted to Christianity and ran away to Florida say her Muslim parents are standing in the way of her effort to fight deportation.

Seventeen-year-old Rifqa Bary is an illegal immigrant and does not want to be returned to her native Sri Lanka where, her attorneys say, she could be hurt or killed.

Bary's case drew international attention when she ran away from home last year, because she feared retribution from her Muslim family for becoming a Christian.

Her attorneys asked a judge in Columbus on Monday to sign an order stating that reunification with her parents is not possible by her 18th birthday in August.

The order would allow Bary, who is in foster care, to apply for special immigration status without her parents' consent.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that the attorney for Bary's parents told the judge he was unaware of Bary's legal effort to apply to an immigration court, saying her parents had previously filed immigration applications for the entire family.

The judge declined to issue the order without first holding a hearing next month.

Last year Bary, who ran away from her New Albany, Ohio home, was located in Florida, where she had been taken in by the pastor of the evangelical Global Revolution Church.

According to CBS Affiliate WBNS, Bary said she'd fled because her Muslim parents threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.

An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found no credible evidence for a threat of an "honor killing" nor any signs of abuse.

Authorities are investigating whether actions taken to assist the runaway broke any laws. Bary said the Florida pastor and his wife, Blake and Beverly Lorenz, paid for her bus ticket and sheltered her. Brian Michael Williams, an aspiring minister, allegedly drove the girl to a Greyhound bus station in Columbus.

No charges have been filed.