When the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence Against Women in 1993, it gave long overdue
recognition to the fact that gendered domestic violence is not a private
issue, but a public health and human rights concern for the
international community. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s decision this
week to stop giving asylum protections for domestic violence victims
stands in grim conflict with this principle.
On Monday, Sessions reversed an immigration court’s ruling that granted asylum to a woman from El Salvador whose husband had repeatedly abused her physically, sexually, and emotionally. The court ruled in 2014 that domestic violence victims constitute a social group when it comes to asylum considerations. But in a 31-page ruling with profound implications for immigration policy, Sessions wrote that “generally” claims on domestic and gang violence will no longer qualify for asylum and will not even reach the initial “credible fear” standard to allow an immigrant to have her asylum claim heard by a judge. Victims of domestic and gang violence, in other words, won’t even be able to have their claims for asylum heard.
The effect of Sessions’s ruling could be sweeping and immediate. Immigration attorneys have said this decision could invalidate tens of thousands of pending asylum claims from women fleeing domestic and gang violence, which often intersect, in Central America and Mexico.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The Intercept_
On Monday, Sessions reversed an immigration court’s ruling that granted asylum to a woman from El Salvador whose husband had repeatedly abused her physically, sexually, and emotionally. The court ruled in 2014 that domestic violence victims constitute a social group when it comes to asylum considerations. But in a 31-page ruling with profound implications for immigration policy, Sessions wrote that “generally” claims on domestic and gang violence will no longer qualify for asylum and will not even reach the initial “credible fear” standard to allow an immigrant to have her asylum claim heard by a judge. Victims of domestic and gang violence, in other words, won’t even be able to have their claims for asylum heard.
The effect of Sessions’s ruling could be sweeping and immediate. Immigration attorneys have said this decision could invalidate tens of thousands of pending asylum claims from women fleeing domestic and gang violence, which often intersect, in Central America and Mexico.
Click here for the full article.
Source: The Intercept_
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