The Trump administration reversed Monday asylum protections for domestic violence victims, as well as for victims of gang violence, a move that could eventually deprive tens of thousands of immigrants of protection in the United States.
The conditions set by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which have to be met in order for a victim to qualify for asylum protections, are particularly unrealistic and threaten to prevent victims from getting protection altogether. Namely, the government of the home country must be unable or unwilling to help the victims, and “the applicant must show that the government condoned the private actions or demonstrated an inability to protect the victims.”
The latest move by the Trump administration seems to provide further evidence that it has prioritized curtailing asylum claims in the U.S., even though asylum is an obligation under international law.
What’s even more serious is that gang violence is a major problem in Central America which the current administration has clearly acknowledged exists. The Department of Homeland Security said in its 2016 flow report that that year alone more than 60,000 individuals from the most gang-afflicted countries in Central America, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, applied for asylum.
According to Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at Human Rights First, most of that region’s asylum seekers’ claims are based on criminal violence. She added that last month, “the UN Refugee Agency reported that it was seeing a ‘significant increase in the number of people fleeing violence and persecution in the North of Central America’, many of which were in serious danger.”
The decision to end these protections was almost immediately condemned by civil rights advocates, saying it puts people seeking asylum in great danger.
“Today’s decision puts many refugees and asylum seekers fleeing horrific violence – especially women – in grave danger and violates the spirit of our asylum law which Congress wrote to protect victims of persecution, including women and children who flee their home countries in fear of their lives,” said David Leopold, a former president and general counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Sessions was quick to defend his decision, saying it “restores sound principles” of the law.
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