Allan Monga, 19, a Deering High junior and an asylum seeker from Zambia, won local- and state-level competitions in the Poetry Out Loud program. (Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald)

A Deering High School junior who is in Maine seeking asylum from Zambia will find out by Friday whether he can participate in a national poetry recital contest that begins Monday.

A federal judge in Portland on Wednesday heard arguments in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Allan Monga, 19, who has been banned from participating in the Poetry Out Loud competition to be held April 23-25 in Washington, D.C.

Monga, who began reciting poetry last fall shortly after arriving from Zambia, won the Maine state Poetry Out Loud finals in March. That win earned him the right to compete in the national finals. But the rules of Poetry Out Loud, administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, specify that contestants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and Monga was deemed ineligible.

Judge John A. Woodcock said after the 90-minute hearing that he would make a decision by Friday. Monga’s attorneys are asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the NEA, which would allow Monga to participate.

Monga, who said he’d never been in a courtroom before, said he has continued to practice reciting so that he’ll be ready if he gets to go to the national finals. When asked if the court case was distracting from his focus on poetry, Monga said he thinks his recital skills have become stronger in the past week or so. As he left court, he said he was going straight to a practice session with two of his poetry coaches.

“I just have to focus on be ready,” said Monga, as a couple dozen supporters stood behind him in court. “Being in court and seeing everything that happens here has been a wonderful experience.”

One of Monga’s lawyers, Bruce Smith, said the case was “very much about an educational benefit” being bestowed on any public school student. He said Monga would suffer “irreparable” harm by not going to the contest because he may not get another chance to compete in the national finals and “show his merit.” The national Poetry Out Loud champion is awarded $20,000, while other awards and school stipends are given to competitors. But the NEA’s lawyer, Rachel Westmoreland, said the case was more about the NEA’s right to “draw the line” in deciding who is eligible for its programs and how its money should be spent. She said a ruling in favor of Monga could cause harm because it “opens up the NEA to challenges” from other non-permanent residents.

Monga and the Portland Public Schools filed suit against the NEA on April 11. The complaint asked that the NEA’s decision to ban Monga be overturned, on grounds that his right to due process of law was being violated and that he was being discriminated against based on his immigrant status and national origin. The NEA’s lawyers countered, in court documents, that the government has the power to regulate its relationship with “alien visitors.”

Monga was allowed to compete in the state version of Poetry Out Loud because the Maine Arts Commission – organizer of the state’s Poetry Out Loud contest – decided to allow him despite national contest rules, Monga’s lawer Melissa Hewey said. After becoming a regional finalist and earning a spot in the state finals, Monga was told he could not compete further. But Portland school officials contacted the Maine Arts Commission on his behalf, and he was allowed to participate.

When his suit was filed last week, Monga quickly gained some vocal and public supporters in his quest to recite verse, including Portland’s legislative delegation, city school officials, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, and a group of Maine writers that includes novelist Richard Russo and Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Portland’s poet laureate.

Monga’s talent for reciting poetry, given that he only took it up a few months ago, has stunned teachers and poets who have worked with him to prepare for the competition.

“He’s uncommonly talented at this, no matter what his story is,” said Fay-LeBlanc. “He’s tapping in to something, and when he recites the temperature in the room changes. Not everyone can do that.”

Although one key component of the suit is Monga’s status as an asylum seeker, he has not answered questions about why he left Zambia. Asylum cases are confidential, based on the rationale that sharing information about an asylum-seeker’s claims could bring harm to friends and family left behind. So it’s common for asylum seekers not to make their pasts public, said Anna Welch, a professor who heads the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Maine School of Law in Portland.

“Talking about the fears someone has of their government back home can be very dangerous. We’ve heard of cases where family members have been killed because of it,” said Welch.

To be granted asylum, a person has to have suffered past persecution in the country they left or have a well-founded fear of future persecution. The government in question has to be deemed unwilling or unable to protect them from that harm. Asylum cases can take years to resolve.

In a declaration filed with the suit, Monga stated that he fled Zambia in 2017 and traveled alone to New York, where he spent the night in an airport, then flew on to Portland. He said he lived for while last summer at the Preble Street Teen Center in Portland. He lives in Westbrook now. The declaration states that Monga has applied for asylum with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and has an Employment Authorization Card and a Social Security number. If he receives asylum, he hopes to apply to be a permanent resident.

Once a person is in the U.S. and has applied for asylum formally, they cannot be lawfully removed from the country until their case is resolved, Welch said. There is precedent for asylum seekers taking legal action to protect their rights while in the U.S., Welch said, including joining class action suits to project due process rights, such as the right to an attorney or the right to an interpreter.

Monga found out about Poetry Out Loud last fall and entered a Deering competition in December. He won and then started getting ready for the regional competition. Monga said he practiced reciting poems daily, arriving at school around 7:20 a.m. to practice and work with his English teacher on pronunciation, gestures and understanding the meaning of the poems. He also practiced with his school’s drama teacher.

“He’s a story teller. The way he uses his voice and his gestures to conjure a picture of character or a situation puts you right there,” said Margaret Callaghan, a Deering English teacher who has worked with Monga. “And it seemed to come out of the blue. The first time he came to practice (and read “In The Desert” by Stephen Crane) I was just shocked.”

This story will be updated.

Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

Twitter: @RayRouthier