Browse our publications to learn more about how we support immigrant survivors of gender-based violence through service in communities, courts, and Congress.
On June 10, 2020, the administration proposed new regulations that aim to end asylum. Within the regulations is an attempt to end gender-based asylum, which endangers the survivors we work with, and so many others who need legal protection in the U.S. In this explainer, we review the development of gender-based asylum and the uphill battle to secure protections for individuals fleeing gender-based harms.
Today, the administration proposed regulations that aim to overturn U.S. asylum law, making it effectively impossible for people fleeing persecution to obtain protection in the United States. If implemented, the rule would eliminate gender-based asylum—shutting the door to anyone fleeing life-threatening persecution due to their gender, while undoing decades of legal precedent. Women fleeing rape and severe domestic violence, LGBTQ+ individuals facing deadly attacks, and those escaping other fatal gender-based harms will no longer be allowed to seek safety within our borders if the regulations take effect.
As the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in detention centers climbs, Tahirih condemns the administration’s ongoing attempts to separate families. One way the administration has done this is through “binary choice”—after families are detained together for 20 days, parents must either stay in detention indefinitely with their children until their immigration case is closed, or send their child to a government shelter and wait until someone else seeks custody of them.
Child marriage remains a serious problem in present-day America. Since 2000, well over 200,000 minors were married, most of them girls married to adult men. Children lack the rights and resources of adults and are more vulnerable to coercion and predation. As a result, many child marriages are forced marriages, and/or are cover-ups for other abuse and exploitation.
Marriage before age 18 has devastating, lifelong consequences, including greater vulnerability to sexual and domestic violence, increased medical and mental health problems, higher drop-out rates from high school and college, greater risk of poverty, and up to 80% divorce rates. Read this backgrounder to learn how child marriage, even if by “choice,” denies young people the opportunity to lead healthy and fulfilling lives.
State laws that allow child marriage to persist can ratchet up these risks. To learn more, explore our 50-state statutory compilation and legislative analyses, survivor story compilation, and other resources at tahirih.org/childmarriage.
The Tahirih Justice Center and partner organizations filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in support of a U-visa petitioner facing potential deportation. The brief highlights the severe harm that survivors and others will suffer if they are deported while their U-visa petitions remain pending.
Last night, the administration issued an executive order that will temporarily suspend some immigration to the United States. The Tahirih Justice Center condemns this order, which comes at a time– a global pandemic– when survivors need to feel comfortable seeking safety.
On April 23, 2020, the Tahirih Justice Center submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in response to the Interim Final Rule (IFR) issued by the agency on March 20, 2020 entitled: “Control of Communicable Diseases; Foreign Quarantine: Suspension of Introduction of Persons Into United States From Designated Foreign Countries or Places for Public Health Purposes.”
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