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Trump and Sessions Slam Door on Abused Women Seeking Asylum
Trump hates his own Justice Department Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In fact, in early June it was reported Trump won't even say Sessions' name anymore. We hate Sessions as well.... and Trump too.
And they hate women, particularly abused women seeking to escape from extreme danger. This is just unbelievable, like so many things going on right now.
Women in an exodus from Central America since 2014 have succeeded in winning asylum or other protections in the United States as victims of a pandemic of domestic abuse in that region. Because of recent cases that established fear of domestic violence as a legitimate basis for asylum, those claims often found more solid legal grounding in U.S. immigration court than claims of people who said they were escaping from killer gangs.
Under current American law, migrants who come to the border saying they fear returning home have a right to an interview by immigration authorities and in many cases to be heard in immigration court. The spread of vicious gang violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala has put them at the top of lists of the most murderous countries in the world.
For women whose lives are in grave danger having faced years of beatings, Trump and Sessions want America to say, 'Oh well. Get lost.'
Now the Trump administration, determined to stop the stream of people to the border from Central America, is moving to curtail or close the legal avenues to protection for abused women....
Attorney General Jeff Sessions.... the top official in charge of the immigration courts, is.... using his power to restrict who can receive asylum, arguing a current lack of clarity and “decisions that hold out hope where a fair reading of the law gives none ... have cruelly hurt many people.” His solution to stop “cruelly hurting people” is to deny relief to more of them.
Sessions....instruct[ed] federal prosecutors along the border to show “zero tolerance” by bringing criminal charges against anyone caught crossing illegally.
This is a disgusting and unacceptable change to our policies. It is unbelievable that they propose them proudly as if they're accomplishing something for our nation when they're harming the victims and our moral existence.
Under U.S. and international law, asylum is intended for people with a fear of persecution in their native country..... The 2014 Board of Immigration Appeals ruling.... allowed judges to consider women who suffered domestic violence....
Sessions rejected that ruling, presenting a narrower set of criteria for asylum.... exclude not just domestic violence victims, but also people who faced threats by gangs or other non-government forces. “Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum,” he wrote.
....protections Trump is seeking to roll back are long established in international refugee law, said Karen Musalo, a professor who is director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. S he led the protracted legal battle that resulted in the courts recognizing that women who suffered domestic violence could gain asylum. “If you put it all together,” Musalo said, “he is trying to cut back in every way on access to protection.”
“You put all these cases together and the potential impact on vulnerable women is magnified,” said Toni Maschler, a lawyer in Washington, D.C. who has handled many asylum claims.
In other changes that will affect women seeking refuge, DHS officials want to reframe the initial interviews immigration officers conduct with migrants, to make it more difficult to pass the first hurdle for asylum.
The Justice Department said it would halt at the end of April a program run by the Vera Institute of Justice of legal rights presentations in 38 detention centers. For many women, the orientation sessions were the first time they learned they could seek legal help to fight to stay in the United States.
Sources:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sessions-immigrants-asylum_us_5b1e981de4b0adfb826c3204