The nation’s highest immigration court is acknowledging something that battered and abused women have always know: domestic violence is a form of persecution.
As The New York Times reports, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a “nine-page decision (that) helps clarify the interpretation of broad and vague language in the legal definition of a refugee.” Under immigration,
Foreigners may qualify for asylum if they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on race, nationality, religion, political opinion or “membership in a particular social group.”
Women’ now qualify as a protected group, because ongoing violence and threats are the essence of persecution.
This, of course, is something advocates for domestic violence have long understood. The National Domestic Violence Hotline defines abuse as
a repetitive pattern of behaviors to maintain power and control over an intimate partner. These are behaviors that physically harm, arouse fear, prevent a partner from doing what they wish or force them to behave in ways they do not want. Abuse includes the use of physical and sexual violence, threats and intimidation, emotional abuse and economic deprivation. Many of these different forms of abuse can be going on at any one time.
This is not materially different from the general dictionary definition of persecution: “to treat (someone) cruelly or unfairly especially because of race or religious or political beliefs.”
Anti-immigration groups disagree, as the Times reports.
“A lot of these cases are undeniably horrific, but do we want to destroy our refugee system to make these ultimately political statements about domestic violence?” asked Michael M. Hethmon, a lawyer who argued in the case for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that seeks reduced immigration.
But this is a flawed argument. All legal definitions are political. They are developed based upon a series of calculations and negotiations and attempt to balance a variety of competing interests. In this case, the court decided that the threat of continued violence faced by Aminta Cifuentes, the Guatemalan asylum-seeker at the center of this case, outweighed other considerations and that the those greats — and the threats faced by other women fleeing abuse — deserves protection.
Anti-immigration advocates are not really concerned about this being a political statement so much as they are concerned about its impact on asylum claims. The ruling is likely to expand access to asylum and could all ultimately have some bearing on child asylum claims. From a humanitarian standpoint, this is good news — as it is for the rights and welfare of women around the world.
Hank Kalet 