For One Refugee, Sculpture Paves the Way to Freedom

"What this really shows is that, when you look at immigrants as human beings, rather than faceless stereotypes," Mr. Westerman adds, "you have to recognize the humanity they have, and then it becomes harder to throw them in jail and forget about them."

Wu's new status enables him to file for permanent residence. Assuming he got the coveted green card, he could work here - and bring along the wife and 11-year-old son he has not seen for four years.

Mr. Assadi, one of Wu's pro-bono lawyers, says he hopes the legal victory will pave the way for the remaining 46 Chinese aliens still incarcerated in York to be released based on their artistic ability too.

"Congress passed the special law for artists of extraordinary ability like Mr. Wu so that they could produce their art in freedom, not in an immigration jail," he says.

But Wu's ambitions weren't so lofty three years ago when he started tearing out tiny pieces of paper and folding them into tiny squares at the York prison, which INS pays $45 a day to house and feed men and women like Wu.

He just wanted to kill time. He needed an outlet to soothe the pain caused by his separation from his wife and son. Both are now living with relatives in China's Fujian province.

Using whatever he could find in jail - from toilet paper to containers of noodle soups, Wu started to craft Chinese figures in the century-old tradition of paper folding. The art was remarkable not only for its intricacy but also for the conditions under which it was made, observers say.

There were teapots made of carefully rolled pieces of legal paper. Toilet tissue dyed with tea and colored with magic markers produced breathtaking dragons, owls, and pagodas.

In all, Wu and his fellow Chinese illegal aliens crafted more than 10,000 sculptures - each composed of pieces of magazine paper torn out by hand, folded into little triangles, and fitted into place on a body of papier-mch toilet tissue.

As time went by, Wu experimented, adding to Chinese symbols layers of the America he saw or imagined from prison. He crafted eagles that supporters called "freedom birds" to express his thwarted hopes. And a Statue of Liberty in toilet paper.

"The thought that it was done in prison, using the pages of glossy American magazines, makes it even more powerful," says Robert Orsi, a professor of religion at Indiana University in Bloomington. Mr. Orsi, who specializes in immigrant art, joined other scholars and curators in writing in support of Wu's petition for the artist visa.

While Wu sat in jail, his art gained national and international attention, thanks in part to a group of local sympathizers who gave the men tools and moral support.

The art was sold to pay for the lawyers' out-of-pocket expenses. It's produced $125,000 so far, according to Jeff Lobach, the York lawyer who started the pro-bono effort to free the Chinese men.

The Golden Venture art also drew the attention of curators around the country. The National Endowment for the Arts partially funded a video on the illegal aliens' story that was part of the exhibit.

Like the art typically done by immigrants, Wu's incorporates the ways of the Old and the New worlds to fashion something fresh and that is Wu's - and immigration's - real contribution to America.

He's an artist who has "interpreted the inner meaning of migration for American citizens," Orsi says, adding: "They were detained, but the fact that they created this exquisite, transcendent art transforms them from victims to speakers of their own experiences."

As to whether his view of America has changed after almost four years of imprisonment in an American immigration jail, Wu says he's not bitter. "I realize and understand that I came here illegally."

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