{"id":591475,"date":"2018-06-12T08:45:58","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T14:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=591475"},"modified":"2018-06-12T08:45:58","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T14:45:58","slug":"most-victims-of-domestic-or-gang-violence-alone-not-eligible-for-asylum-ag-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/most-victims-of-domestic-or-gang-violence-alone-not-eligible-for-asylum-ag-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Most victims of domestic or gang violence alone not eligible for asylum, AG says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_591480\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-591480\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT-771x517.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Sessions\" width=\"771\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT-771x517.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT-336x225.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Sessions_ATX_3_BD_TT.jpg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Bob Daemmrich \/ for The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks about carrying out President Donald Trump&#8217;s immigration priorities at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Western District of Texas in Austin on Oct. 20, 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions ruled Monday that most victims of domestic or gang violence alone were generally not eligible for asylum under federal law,\u00a0a move that reverses long-standing U.S. policy and,\u00a0immigration attorneys and advocacy groups say, paves\u00a0the way for victims of violence to stay trapped in their home countries.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/11\/jeff-sessions-victims-domestic-or-gang-violence-asylum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Sessions\u00a0overruled\u00a0the Board of Immigration Appeals in the <em>Matter of A-R-C-G-<\/em>, which dealt with married Guatemalan women\u00a0who were trapped in abusive relationships.\u00a0Sessions wrote that the\u00a0Board&#8217;s 2014 decision\u00a0\u201cwas wrongly decided and should not have been issued as a precedential decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of the respondents in that case was beaten and raped by her husband but was told the police could do nothing to help her, according to the Catholic Legal Immigration Network.<\/p>\n<p>In Monday\u2019s decision, Sessions wrote that,\u00a0while\u00a0circumstances in certain countries might be less than ideal, such conditions don\u2019t automatically apply to current asylum laws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes \u2014 such as domestic violence or gang violence \u2014 or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>In the opinion, Sessions said that the Board of Immigration cited the 2014 ruling to overturn a 2015 asylum denial concerning a Salvadoran woman also fleeing violence, referred to in court documents as A-B. The decision was also vacated after Session said the board did &#8220;little more than cite&#8221; the previous case in its reversal.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t even tell you how many people moving forward this is going to effect,\u201d said Austin-based\u00a0immigration\u00a0attorney Jacqueline Watson. \u201cNot to mention this is totally ripping individual [judge\u2019s] fact finding away from them, which is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asylum seekers must prove they face persecution in their home country due to their \u201crace, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.\u201d In the 2014 case, the Board of Immigration Appeals said those petitioners belonged to the social group comprised of \u201cmarried women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beth Werlin, the executive director of the American Immigration Council, blasted the decision for its effects on people also fleeing gang violence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough our work serving detained mothers and children in Dilley, Texas, we see firsthand the trauma of domestic and gang violence and the desperate need for protection,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Attorney General\u2019s decision \u2014 if permitted to stand \u2014 will no doubt result in sending countless mothers and children back to their abusers and criminal gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jeanne Atkinson, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, said that asylum law has long viewed it as a form of persecution when abuse comes from entities that a national government is unable or unwilling to control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo declare that asylum can no longer be granted to victims of gang violence or spouse abuse not only flies in the face of the American tradition of protecting the most vulnerable immigrants, it sets a dangerous precedent for other victims of violence, including those who are targeted for their religious beliefs,\u201d Atkinson said.<script async src=\"https:\/\/cdn.texastribune.org\/pixel\/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js\" integrity=\"sha384-8Xwf\/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" data-tt-canonical=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2018\/06\/11\/jeff-sessions-victims-domestic-or-gang-violence-asylum\/\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ruling reverses long-standing U.S. policy and, immigration attorneys and advocacy groups say, paves the way for victims of violence to stay trapped in their home countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":591480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[140,142,3654,116],"class_list":["post-591475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-crime","tag-jeff-sessions","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}