January 30, 2019

Asylum seekers citing domestic abuse remain in limbo in U.S.

editor:	Yair Oded

Back in June 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a ruling stipulating that domestic abuse or gang violence will not be recognized as legitimate grounds for lodging asylum requests in the United States. Sessions’ controversial decree, which was to affect thousands of asylum seekers from Central America, was rebuked last December by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Yet, as legal challenges to Sessions’ policy continue to be deliberated upon, countless asylum seekers are forced to wait in limbo, with no indication as to whether or not they’ll be deported back to their countries of origin.

One of these asylum seekers in Ms. A.B., an El Salvadorian national who fled ruthless domestic abuse in her home country in search for a safe haven. Last week, Human Rights Watch issued a short video in which they shed light on A.B.’s story, which mirrors the catastrophic implications Sessions’ policy has on thousands of asylum seekers.

“I experienced a lot of violence, beatings, abuse, rape…including my third child, who was born as a result of rape” recounts A.B., as she delivers a chilling testimony about life with her husband back in El Salvador. “A friend [of my husband’s] said he would kill me; put me in a garbage bag and throw me in the river,” A.B. continues, “I fled to another town but El Salvador is small, he always found me.”

According to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, a person’s asylum claim may only be valid should their own government fail to provide them with adequate protection (or is actively persecuting them). Based on this logic, a domestic abuse case would most likely not qualify a British or an American national for asylum elsewhere, seeing as these government are, at least for the most part, equipped to protect their citizens from violent partners. Alas, many governments fail to protect their citizens who are victims of domestic abuse, even in cases where the practice itself is officially outlawed. El Salvador is one of these countries, and A.B.’s story constitutes a tragic testimony to this reality.

“The police [in El Salvador] did nothing. I told them everything that happened to me.” Claims A.B., who attempted on multipule occasions to seek help with through the local authorities. Their response, according to A.B., was: “He’s your partner. He has the right to do whatever he wants with you.” Finally, A.B. managed to convince local authorities to issue an order of protection against her husband; yet instead of notifying her husband, the police had A.B. deliver the order to him by herself. “So he ripped it up,” recounts A.B. “Threw it at my face and said ‘This is what I’ll do with your protective order’. I was terrified, and I couldn’t go on.”

Mr. Andres Lopez, A.B.’s attorney, further expounds her well-founded fear and failed attempts to seek protection from the El Salvadorian authorities: “She tried to leave town and hide. She tried to change her phone number, she tried to seek protection from the police, she tried to divorce her husband… she did divorce her husband and still he continued to commit violence against her. When you take this in its totality, there was absolutely no protection for her to remain in El Salvador.”

A.B.’s case is merely one out of many in which battered women from Central America (and elsewhere in the world) are stranded by their governments. By rejecting A.B’s claim and in issuing a sweeping decree withholding asylum privileges from all victims of domestic abuse and gang violence, Sessions did not only deny protection to thousands of vulnerable human beings who desperately need it, but also violated both U.S. and international asylum and immigration laws. It remains to be seen whether his decision will be rescinded by the incoming attorney general, whose confirmation hearings are still ongoing.

“For me to go back, I don’t even want to think about it.” Says A.B. “I might end up like other women who are no longer here to tell their story.”

Photo: flickr/Fibonacci Blue

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