Browse our publications to learn more about how we support immigrant survivors of gender-based violence through service in communities, courts, and Congress.
Making Progress, But Still Falling Short outlines what more needs to be done to end child marriage in America both at the state and federal level. It contains the latest analysis (updated September 1, 2024) on all 35 states that have recently enacted laws to end or limit child marriage, calling out features that make them strong or weak.
For a high-level summary of the nature of all the marriage-age reforms enacted by states since 2016, please click here.
For a map of all the reforms made since 2016, please click here.
For analysis of the impact of reforms that limited, but did not end, child marriage, click here.
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The Steering Committee of the National Task Force to End Sexual & Domestic Violence sent a letter to President Biden expressing their deep concern about proposed permanent changes to the U.S. immigration system that would drastically limit eligibility for asylum seekers and have a disproportionate impact on immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.
Download the full letter below.
The Tahirih Justice Center is dismayed by the recent Texas legislation that targets immigrants, people seeking asylum, and Texans of color for arrest, deportation, and further criminalization. These new laws – SB4 from the 3rd Special Session adding a penalty enhancement for smuggling, and SB3 and SB4 from the 4th Special Session, on appropriations and unlawful entry, perpetuate racist and xenophobic narratives about immigrants. These laws will also have a devasting and disproportionate impact on immigrant survivors of gender-based violence by cutting off access to the U.S. asylum system, enabling law enforcement officers to deport survivors of crime rather than provide assistance, and creating conditions in which immigrants are increasingly vulnerable to violence.
Enacting these policies will exacerbate the risk of gender-based violence along the U.S. southern border, as women and girls are left vulnerable to abuse and exploitation in increasingly precarious conditions. The impact of these laws will be felt statewide and will serve to cultivate a climate of fear among survivors of gender-based violence seeking asylum in the U.S. while undermining protections guaranteed to survivors under federal law.
Texas has a legal and moral obligation to protect all asylum seekers and immigrants, particularly women, children, and all who experience gender-based violence, from further harm. The Tahirih Justice Center calls on Texans to join in solidarity with immigrant survivors of gender-based violence to support humane and trauma-informed immigration policies.
The Tahirih Justice Center is outraged by the news that the administration appears willing to play politics with human lives. These attacks on immigrants and people seeking asylum represent not simply a broken promise, but a betrayal and we urge the President and Congress to reverse course.
“I am gravely concerned that, if passed, these policies will further trap and endanger immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. Selling out asylum seekers and immigrant communities under the guise of ‘border security’ in order to pass a supplemental funding package is absolutely unacceptable,” said Casey Carter Swegman, Director of Public Policy at the Tahirih Justice Center. “And we know the impact of these cruel, deterrence-based policies will land disproportionately on already marginalized immigrants of color. I urge the White House and Congress not to sell out immigrants and asylum seekers for a funding deal.”
Every day, people fleeing persecution – including survivors of gender-based violence – arrive at our border having escaped unspeakable violence. Rasing the fear standard, enacting a travel ban, putting a cap on asylum seekers, and expanding expedited removal nationwide (to name just a few proposals that have been floated in recent days) will do nothing to solve the challenges at the southern border and serve only to create more confusion, narrow pathways to humanitarian relief, increase the risk of revictimization and suffering, and punish immigrants seeking safety and a life of dignity.
These kinds of proposals double down on the climate of fear that many immigrants in this country already face on a day-to-day basis and will disproportionately impact Black, Brown and Indigenous immigrant communities. Immigrants should not be met with hostile and unmanageable policies that violate their humanity as well as their legal rights. We can and must do better.
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