Janet Hinshaw-Thomas

The author’s work reflects the various aspects of her life. Growing up in the privileged society of the Manhattan East Side and a private girls’ school, Nightingale Bamford, her family sent her into exile in Denmark to give birth to her son, who suddenly died at eleven months. After two years at Bard College, she returned to Europe and became a graduate student in the Department of Ethnology at Cologne University in Germany. She spent approximately eight years in Germany and 8 years with her first husband’s family in Afghanistan, living in the rural area around Kabul and teaching English as a Second Language. Two political revolutions in Afghanistan sent her with her husband and two young daughters to seek safety in the United States. It was here that she founded and acted as the director of a small non-profit agency, PRIME, which in 1996 was recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice to represent clients before the Immigration Services and the Immigration Courts. 

Since that time, she has studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a master’s degree in history and public policy from Vermont College at Norwich University. In pursuit of gaining refugee status for Christian Iraqis fleeing Saddam Hussein, she traveled extensively to Cyprus and Malta. Her agency also assisted Indonesians and Haitians in applying for asylum in Canada. In 2007, she was arrested by the Canadian authorities on suspicion of trafficking. However, with the tremendous support of the Canadian people, the Canadian Government declined to prosecute her. Finally, between 2009 and 2015, she traveled between the United States and Afghanistan seeking justice for herself to regain her real estate property there. After the U.S. Consulate warned her of a kidnapping plot, she abandoned this venture. 

Both she and her first husband are happily remarried to other spouses, and she is proud of her four grandchildren: Janet, Layla, Josh, and Hisham, whose heritage includes Japan, Hawaii, and Morocco. She is a member of the Writers Guild of Delco, and she enjoys writing about her experiences living abroad, including both the enjoyable aspects and the more unsettling periods. Professionally, she enjoys documenting her clients' backgrounds for the Immigration Court, recording how their lives were impacted by circumstances in their home countries or by intercultural marriage. This also includes an analysis of pertinent Immigration law. She has obtained asylum for people from a large range of countries, including a secret service whistleblower from South Korea. She was also part of a team that brought a case before the Second Circuit. In 2020, her school honored her with a Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Award. Most recently, she has begun writing fiction, using her life experiences to explain ‘reality.’