A Mexican woman who claimed she was beaten and raped for decades by her common-law husband has won the right to stay in the US in a case that experts say makes clear that domestic violence is valid grounds for asylum.
The US Department of Homeland Security found that the case of the woman known only as L.R. met the stringent standard necessary to win asylum. An immigration judge found in her favor on Aug. 4, and the decision was announced this week by her attorneys.
“The point has been made, very loud and clear, that cases such as these involving domestic violence and even more broadly, gender-based violence against women, are valid cases,” said Karen Musalo, L.R.’s attorney and the head of Hastings Law School’s Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California.
What makes this case remarkable is that asylum has traditionally been given to individuals being persecuted by a government; applicants had to show they suffered persecution because of their religion, political beliefs, race, nationality or membership of a particular social group.
This case increases the scope of who may qualify for asylum by expanding the definition of “particular social group.” Women who have suffered genital mutilation or in L.R.’s case, domestic abuse, have been recently deemed “social groups” and granted asylum.
This expanded definition is controversial.
“If we’re going to expand certain categories of asylum from their original definition, then some clarification from Congress is warranted,” said Jon Feere, a legal analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
However, success in this case will not bring a flood of asylum applications from battered women, said Pamela Goldberg, who works on asylum jurisprudence for the UN High Commissioner for Refugeees in Washington.
Nor does the approval of cases such as L.R.’s make the US unique, said Goldberg. Canada, the UK and New Zealand, among other countries, recognize domestic violence as valid ground for an asylum claim.
A former special prosecutor for crimes against women from Mexico City, Alicia Elena Perez Duarte Y Norona, submitted a declaration in L.R.’s case backing her assertion that she could not count on law enforcement for help.
“Mexico remains a country in which women have limited, if nonexistent, means to escape violence in our relationships” she wrote. “Women who are victims of this violence confront major obstacles when, in trying to put an end to the abuse they are suffering, they seek the protection of judicial authorities.”
In 2004, L.R. managed to escape to the US and filed her application for asylum the next year. Her case was denied twice.
In April last year, the US Department of Homeland Security filed a brief on L.R.’s behalf, saying her claim could be valid and outlining what she would have to prove.
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