Proposal Broadens Asylum

By Dan Eggen
Friday, December 8, 2000; Page A04

Battered women from other countries could use their status as victims of domestic violence to apply for asylum in the United States, according to new rules proposed yesterday by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The decision was hailed by pro-immigrant groups and women's advocates as a long- overdue step to provide shelter for women fleeing abusive relationships in their home countries, where social norms and tepid laws offer little protection.

In addition, experts said the rules could also be used by immigrants already residing in the United States who, under current guidelines, are often deported along with a spouse convicted of a domestic crime. About 300 people are deported each year as abusers, according to INS statistics.

Estimates of the rule's impact vary, but all agree it would annually open the door to hundreds, if not thousands, of new asylum-seekers.

"This recognizes that domestic violence is not a private issue; it's a public issue," said INS spokesman Bill Strassberger. "Although domestic violence is a more personal, one-on-one type of persecution, it is still persecution."

But critics of U.S. immigration policy decried the proposal as a drastic expansion of the asylum concept, which was originally intended to offer protection to those persecuted for political or religious beliefs.

David Ray, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the rules will spur on thousands of new asylum-seekers, both real and fraudulent, and will turn an already overburdened immigration system into a sprawling divorce court.

"Before we had some very strict rules where you had to say, 'Here is a government that is persecuting me because of my beliefs,' " Ray said. "Now all you have to say is 'I'm in a bad marriage.' . . . It takes asylum away from political persecution and into the realm of personal relationships."

INS officials and immigrant advocates say such fears are overblown, noting that similar rule changes in recent years--such as those allowing gays to cite their homosexuality in an asylum claim--have not resulted in significant increases in asylum claims. The immigration reform federation and other critics argue that those categories are too narrow to compare with domestic violence.

But Leslye E. Orloff, an immigrant expert with the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, predicted that cultural, legal and physical barriers will keep the number of battered women seeking asylum low, despite high abuse rates among some ethnic groups. One recent study of 329 Latina immigrants in the Washington area found that nearly half had been in relationships abusive enough to qualify for a court's protective order, Orloff said.

Applicants for asylum are required to show they can't return home because they face persecution on the basis of political belief, race, religion, nationality or membership in a particular social group.

The last category has evolved over the years to include a range of groups, including expansions in the mid-1990s that added homosexuality and the threat of genital mutilation. Claims by members of clans, such as those found in some African countries, were also added during that time.

Just over 1,000 of the more than 42,000 asylum claims in fiscal 1999 were filed by women saying they were members of a particular social group, which may include being victims of domestic violence. But Ray said that number could "balloon" under the new rules.

The proposed changes, which must undergo a 45-day review period before they are finalized, were spurred in part by a high-profile case last year in which a brutally abused Guatemalan woman was denied asylum by the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body that reviews immigration cases.

Rodi Alvarado told U.S. authorities that her husband beat her unconscious, raped her and kicked her so badly she hemorrhaged, and that Guatemalan authorities rebuffed her pleas for help because they viewed it as a private matter.

Alvarado's case is now under review by Attorney General Janet Reno, who has said the government needs clearer rules on gender-based asylum cases. One official said yesterday that with the new rules, Alvarado "will almost certainly end up getting her asylum."

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