BATTERED WOMEN WIN ASYLUM IN THE US

Two recent decisions granting asylum to battered women have given new vigor to efforts to have such abuse formally recognized as a basis for asylum. The decisions have also caused opponents of efforts to change the laws to heighten their opposition efforts.  In a recent unpublished decision, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) granted asylum to a woman from Morocco who fled her abusive father.  In another matter, the INS dropped its appeal in a case in which an Immigration Judge granted asylum to a Bangladeshi woman who fled her abusive husband of 15 years.

Advocates are hoping that these recent decisions will lead Attorney General Janet Reno to reverse a decision issued by the BIA last summer, in which a Guatemalan woman who suffered horrible abuse at the hands of her husband was denied asylum.  This case, Matter of R-A, unlike the other recent rulings, was a precedent decision.  Precedent decisions are to be followed by judges dealing with the same issue, whereas non-precedent decisions are not binding on future cases.

The INS denies that the recent cases have any bearing on the appeal of Matter of R-A.  The agency maintains that in the recent cases the women were able to demonstrate that the abuse was on the basis of a protected ground, and that their government did not control the abuser.  In R-A, the Board found the abuse was purely a domestic matter, and that the woman was abused because of the person to whom she was married, not because of her membership in a particular social group. 

While there are guidelines for dealing with gender based asylum claims, the resolution of such claims is by no means uniform.  For example, the Moroccan woman was granted asylum because the judge found her to have been abused due to her religious disagreement with her father. The Bangladeshi woman was found to have been abused because of her gender.  Advocates for battered immigrant women argue that the facts of both cases supported a finding of gender based abuse.

Opponents of granting asylum to battered women argue that such a move will create a wave of unfounded claims.  Advocates are concerned that some opposition may be rooted, at least in part, in the attitude toward domestic abuse in the US, where it is still seem primarily as a personal problem in which government agencies are unwilling to become involved.