Women Asylum Seekers in Jeopardy
LCHR Urges Attorney General John Ashcroft to Abandon Plan
that Could Endanger Women and Girls Seeking Asylum in the United States
NEW YORK - Women seeking asylum in the United States based on
gender-related violence face a new threat today - from the Justice
Department.
Attorney General John Ashcroft is reportedly planning to reverse current
policy on the availability of asylum for victims of domestic violence
and issue new regulations which could severely limit the ability of
women fleeing many forms of gender-based human rights abuses -
including sex trafficking, sexual slavery, honor killing and domestic
violence - from seeking asylum in the United States.
“There is no conceivable justification for this change in policy,”
said Elisa Massimino, Director of the Washington D.C. Office of the
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. “It appears that the Ashcroft
Justice Department is scrambling to rush through regulations that
will harm refugee women in the few remaining days that they still
have the power to do so.” There are reports that Attorney General
Ashcroft intends to issue the final regulations before March 1, when
the INS transitions into the new Department of Homeland Security and
his office loses jurisdiction over these issues.
The Lawyers Committee is also concerned that the new regulations may
reverse current policy to make it more difficult for anyone who has
been persecuted by non-state actors to gain asylum protection. "The
implications of this change could be enormous," Massimino said.
"We're talking about potentially denying protection to whole
categories of extremely vulnerable people, including, for example,
victims of horrific mutilation and abuse by the RUF, a rebel group
in Sierra Leone notorious for its campaign of mutilation and organized
sexual violence against girls and women."
The regulations originated with the case of Ms. Rodi Alvarado, a woman
who fled Guatemala in 1995 after her husband repeatedly raped her,
attempted to kill her, and tried to abort her pregnancy by kicking
her in the spine. When the Guatemalan police and courts refused her
official protection, Ms. Alvarado fled to the United States and was
granted asylum by an Immigration Judge. The INS appealed that decision
to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), which vacated the grant
of asylum because her abuse was not perpetrated by a government, and
because she was not a member of a “social group” since
her husband didn't want to harm anyone besides her. Attorney General
Janet Reno subsequently overruled this decision, and the INS issued
proposed regulations which made it clear that gender-related persecution
could be the basis of an asylum claim. The grant of asylum to Ms.
Alvarado was reinstated.
But the proposed regulations recognizing gender-based asylum claims
never became final, and now Attorney General Ashcroft appears poised
to re-instate the initial BIA decision which denied Ms. Alvarado
asylum and issue regulations that would apply that policy to all
women seeking asylum because of gender-based violence. If reports
of these proposed regulations are accurate, we believe that they
will likely result not only in Ms. Alvarado’s return to danger
in Guatemala, but in a nation-wide change in policy and law that
will affect all women and girls seeking asylum on gender-related
claims.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the governments
of Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand all explicitly
recognize that government-tolerated domestic violence is a legitimate
basis for asylum. The United States should continue to do so as
well.
The Lawyers Committee urges Attorney General Ashcroft to
abandon plans to issue final regulations that would put vulnerable
refugee women and girls in further danger by restricting their access
to asylum protection.
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