political asylum for victims is under scrutiny

Mariana De Maio
Adelante Assistant Editor

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In 1995, after suffering more than 10 years of abuse, Rodi Alvarado Peña came to the United States from Guatemala and asked for asylum.
She told U.S. authorities that her husband beat her unconscious, raped her repeatedly, attempted to abort their second child by kicking her in the spine, dislocated her jaw, tried to cut her hands off with a machete, kicked her in the genitals, and broke windows and mirrors against her head. She also said that the Guatemalan police and courts refused to protect her.
Alvarado Peña’s case raised a firestorm of debate that continues to burn in the halls of the U.S. Department of Justice, where decisions about asylum policy are ultimately made. Current policy allows such women to be granted asylum to escape their batterers. But U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to overturn the rules because he views them as an unwarranted expansion of asylum rights.
In 1996, an immigration judge granted Alvarado Peña asylum, finding that the abuse she suffered and the government’s unwillingness or inability to protect her constituted persecution. The asylum was granted on the grounds that she belonged to a social group defined as “Guatemalan women who have been involved intimately with Guatemalan male companions, who believe that women are to live under male domination.”
The current law only allows asylum for foreigners who can establish “a well-founded fear of persecution” in their home countries because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The proposed rules recognize that domestic violence victims may claim “membership in a particular group.”
But the Immigration and Naturalization Service appealed the immigration judge’s decision. In 1999, the asylum was overturned — even though the court acknowledged that she would face further abuse and perhaps death if she returned to Guatemala.
But Alvarado Peña was not forgotten. In 2001, as one of her last acts as attorney general, Janet Reno voided the board’s ruling and issued rules that made asylum possible for Alvarado Peña and other women in similar situations.
Those rules were never made final, and now Attorney General John Ashcroft has expressed concern with this policy and is revisiting the regulations.
Immigration advocates are alarmed by Ashcroft’s move. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights fears new regulations. A recent statement by the group warned that Ashcroft’s approach would severely limit the possibility of asylum for women fleeing trafficking, sexual slavery, honor killing, domestic violence and other gender-based human rights abuses.
In a Feb. 27 letter to Ashcroft, 49 House representatives urged Ashcroft “not to issue regulations that will reject gender-related violence as a basis for asylum.”
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that advocates more restrictive immigration rules, stated “political asylum should not become social asylum,” and expanding the “social group” definition could become “a fast track for asylum abuse.”
But immigrant advocates argue that realistically, that will not be an issue. They doubt many women will seek asylum because of cultural, legal and economic barriers.