The Obama administration has recommended asylum for Rody Alvarado Pena, a Guatemalan woman who fled to the United States, after enduring domestic violence for over a decade.
In 1984, Alvarado married Francisco Osario. She was 16 years old, and he was 21. Soon after they married, Osario unleashed severe, unrelenting abuse upon Alvarado. This continued until 1995, despite Alvarado's repeated pleas for help to Guatemalan police and courts, to which these authorities responded that they would not govern a domestic matter.
When these efforts failed, Alvarado tried to run from Osario within Guatemala. He found her and inflicted violence so pronounced, she lost consciousness. He later threatened that he would cut off her arms and legs if she tried to leave him again.
In 1995, Alvarado fled to the United States, leaving two children behind, to file a petition for asylum. In 1996, a San Francisco immigration judge granted her petition. However, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service ("INS") appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"), and in 1999, the BIA overturned the asylum grant.
In 2001, then-Attorney General Janet Reno vacated the BIA's decision, but she did not grant Alvarado asylum. Then and now, neither women nor domestic violence victims are considered a "particular social group" for which asylum laws contemplate protection. On that basis, Reno denied Alvarado's petition, but she proposed legislation that would designate domestic violence victims as a "particular social group," and thus potentially eligible for asylum.
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") argued in Alvarado's favor. In 2008, then-Attorney General Michael B. Bukasey sent the case back to the BIA, encouraging the court to decide the "particular social group" issue in favor of domestic violence victims.
Alvarado's lawyers recently filed the declaration of Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, an expert witness on the issue of the danger that awaits Alvarado in Guatemala. Bailey, aiming to show that violence against women is commonplace in Guatemala, attested that femicide had taken the lives of over 4,000 Guatemalan women in the past decade.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform ("FAIR") has long maintained that the arm of asylum protection has overreached, extending beyond political asylum and into "social asylum." FAIR resists expanded categorical protection due to fear, that: 1) some will fraudulently avail themselves of asylum laws as a loophole to immigration restrictions, and 2) our government lacks resources to handle a growing population of asylum applicants, and so the rights of U.S. citizens seeking similar protections will be compromised.
At face value, FAIR raises legitimate concerns. The potential for abuse exists when government creates or expands any system for aid. However, that is reason only to be smart in designing and executing aid, not a valid argument against extending it. As for the overextension of U.S. resources, this country has never been short on anything it truly wants, nor the funds to pay for it. We have countless individuals qualified to dispense justice to eligible petitioners from a newly assigned "particular social group." The jobs need only be created, and they will be filled.
Alvarado's lawyer is optimistic that the government's recommendation will sway the case in Alvarado's favor. If the court grants Alvarado's petition, this will set precedent, by including domestic violence victims as a "particular social group" categorically protected by asylum laws.
Though such an outcome would not rectify Alvarado's 14-year absence from her children, now 22 and 17, it would be a huge stride forward in women's rights - not just internationally, but everywhere.
Comments
This will open the floodgates and we all know it, don't we? The only way she could escape domestic violence was to come to the U.S.? I mean, really, come on. This is what's going to happen: 'Honey, say I beat you, file a few complaints with the police, get those suckers in America to legalize you, and then bring me to America'. Just think about all those food stamps, welfare, housing assistance we can claim. And wow, they'll educated our kids at 15K per year per child. You know, I may have to black your eye, but if it grants us, my mother and father, and all my siblings, their kids, asylum, welfare, and the American dream it's worth the lies. Americans love a sob story, and their laws, well, they don't really care about enforcing those. America here we come.
Poor Susanne, living life by casting dark clouds of worst case scenarios.
Interesting.
Suzanne, your comments show a profound lack of understanding. I do understand the point about opening the floodgates, but Guatemalan women,and of course women in other countries too, get zero help from the police or the judicial system. It is a culture where women are taught that beatings are their own fault, that the husband decides how many children the wife can have, even if that is 18 or her health is at risk, and where sexual harassment in the workplace is what women deserve for working outside the home. Additionally, you know very little about what assistance is available in the US. Welfare is only available to people who have children, and only for a limited time. Most housing programs have waiting lists years long, and as for food stamps, if you qualify, I guess maybe you would prefer that people starve? Immigrants are hardworking, and legal immigrants who can get a decent job, rarely qualify for foodstamps. Get over your sense of entitlement,you r just lucky to be a citizen.
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