Browse our publications to learn more about how we support immigrant survivors of gender-based violence through service in communities, courts, and Congress.
LOUISVILLE – In 2018, the Kentucky legislature took an important step forward in
protecting children from sexual predators, making it illegal for children under the age of
17 to get married. The law also added safeguards for 17-year-olds who choose to
marry. Unfortunately, some county officials are ignoring the law and continuing to
allow children under 17 to get married. In September, a bipartisan coalition of
lawmakers and advocates led by Donna Simmons, an author, advocate, and
survivor of child marriage, and Senator Julie Raque Adams (R), launched a new
push to fully end child marriage in Kentucky. A full list of coalition members appears
at the end of this press release.
The Tahirih Justice Center is a founding member of the R.I.S.E. (Reclaim Innocence,
Stop Exploitation) Kentucky Coalition, a united force of advocates, survivors, and allies
dedicated to reclaiming the innocence of children and ending the exploitation of
Kentucky youth through child marriage. Their goal is to ensure transparency of marriage
data, covered by Kentucky’s Open Records Act, and ultimately to pass legislation that
fully ends marriage for all people in Kentucky under the age of 18.
Yesterday, the Attorney General issued a decision in Matter of S-S-F-M- that reinstated a dangerous legal interpretation that will in real terms put survivors of domestic and sexual violence in harm’s way.
After reading this decision, Tahirih Justice Center CEO Archi Pyati responded:
“It is time to put an end to the rollercoaster of injustice that immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence seeking asylum have been forced to tolerate for far too long. While there still may be pathways to asylum for survivors, this decision is woefully out of step with modern U.S. and global legal approaches to violence against women. Congress must act now so that women and girls who fear harm because of their race, religion, or political opinions have a path to safety. We will keep fighting to ensure their voices are heard and their rights protected.”
The decision brought back language originally set forth in a 2018 Attorney General decision in Matter of A-B. “The language strikes at the heart of longstanding protections for domestic violence survivors and others, who look to the United States for protection and refuge. It takes us back decades, to an era when domestic violence was considered a ‘private’ matter, not meriting government intervention. This decision attempts to undermine decades of progress toward human rights policies that recognize the unique vulnerabilities of survivors who have experienced the trauma of violence and have a right to seek asylum and to live free from abuse and persecution,” added Pyati.
She continued, “With this decision, the Attorney General is instituting a policy that will create new obstacles for survivors seeking refuge in the United States, could block access to asylum, and will condemn more domestic violence survivors to deportation to the dangerous situations they risked their lives to flee. Yet again, they will face violence and could very well lose their lives.”
Tahirih has long advocated for gender to be named as the 6th ground of asylum. In response to yesterday’s decision, and other ongoing policy and legal attacks on immigrant women, Tahirih Justice Center is calling out not only the harm of this decision but elevating, once again, the urgent need for ‘gender’ to be recognized as a protected ground for asylum. For more information on our campaign for gender asylum justice, read our report: Ensuring Equal and Enduring Access to Asylum: Why ‘Gender’ Must be a Protected Ground. This report unpacks how current U.S. asylum laws fail to adequately and consistently protect survivors fleeing gender-based violence, leaving them vulnerable to further abuse and trauma. The inclusion of gender as a “sixth ground” of qualification for asylum, is one of several steps needed to transform our immigration system into one that actually protects survivors fleeing life threatening persecution.
To learn more about gender-based asylum claims and the impact of the Attorney General’s decision and the decision in Matter of K-E-S-G-, join Tahirih’s Director of Public Policy and Litigation Counsel for a webinar on September 24 at 12:00 pm (ET).
Falls Church, VA — Tahirih Justice Center Public Policy Manager Alex Goyette addresses a harmful rumor being spread on social media: that there is an attempt by the President to use federal power to lower the legal age of marriage to 14 across the country. This is false.
“It is critical to correct the record on this so that individuals at risk and survivors know the truth,” said Goyette. “The truth is: since 2016, a nonpartisan, national movement has delivered laws restricting child marriage in 36 states, three territories, and Washington, DC. And 16 of those states, two of those territories and Washington, DC have banned child marriage entirely: DE, NJ, PA, MN, RI, NY, MA, VT, CT, MI, WA, VA, NH, MO, ME, OR, plus Washington, DC, American Samoa, and U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Washington, D.C. (July 18, 2025) – Today, the Justice Department issued a precedential decision that attempts to turn back the clock on progress made in recognizing women’s rights as human rights. In Matter of K-E-S-G-, the Board of Immigration Appeals ignores and distorts decades of precedent to declare that women and girls fleeing human rights violations and seeking safety in the United States may no longer qualify for asylum.
“Today’s decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals in Matter of K-E-S-G- goes against long-accepted precedent in cases involving women seeking protection from domestic and sexual violence,” said Kursten Phelps, litigation counsel at the Tahirih Justice Center. “The result could be traumatized women being forced to return to life-threatening situations. The Tahirih Justice Center will continue to fight for the rights of survivors like our client, Ms. S.G., to access legal protection and safety in this country.”
“Early marriage stunts children’s futures and growth for the rest of their lives. Every person in Missouri now has the right to decide, as adults, whether to marry, and to whom.”
JEFFERSON CITY – Incredibly, in 2025, child marriage is still legal in most of the United States. But now the practice is banned across Missouri — making the Show Me State a leader in protecting children from this insidious form of child abuse.
“The harms of early marriage stay with children for the rest of their lives. Bipartisan champions in the Missouri Legislature worked hard to end child marriage and protect all children in Missouri,” said Alex Goyette, Public Policy Manager at the Tahirih Justice Center. “Every person should have the right to decide — freely and for themselves, as adults — whether they want to get married, and to whom.”
The bill to end child marriage in Missouri, HB 737, was introduced by Rep. Melissa Schmidt (R). State Sen. Tracy McCreery (D), Sen. Rick Brattin (R) and Rep. Renee Reuter (R) all sponsored legislation to the same effect, working together to advance the legislation.
According to former State Senator Thompson Rehder, married children are 50% more likely to drop out of school; four times less likely to graduate from college; and 31% more likely to live a future life in poverty than their unmarried peers. They experience domestic violence at more than three times the national average. Eighty percent of their marriages end in divorce.
Child marriage was banned in the District of Columbia, Maine, and Oregon earlier this year. Passing legislation in four more jurisdictions makes 2025 the most successful year yet for the national campaign to end child marriage, launched by Tahirih’s campaign in Virginia in 2016. Check out this Tahirih Justice Center two-pager for an overview.
In a moving essay for the Kansas City Star, Thompson Rheder explained how she chose marriage at the age of 15 to escape an abusive home, and soon regretted it. She dropped out of school, became pregnant, and worked odd jobs to pay the rent. “At 15, when I made this life changing decision, I wasn’t Democrat or Republican,” she wrote. “I was a child, with a child’s brain and a mother who struggled with mental illness, looking for a way out. This bill isn’t about politics. It’s about protecting children.”
Until 2018, Missouri had one of the laxest marriage laws in the United States, allowing thousands of predators to use the cover of a legal marriage to mask their sexual, psychological, and physical coercion of minors. The legislature installed some safeguards, but it was not enough to fully protect children. With the enactment of HB 737, marriage under the age of 18 is forbidden in Missouri — no exceptions.
MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about the status of child marriage bans across the states in this Tahirih Justice Center backgrounder. Follow the national campaign to end child and forced marriage at https://preventforcedmarriage.org/.
Today, the Supreme Court permitted an executive order redefining birthright citizenship to go into effect for everyone except the specific plaintiffs in ongoing federal litigation. In so ruling, the court also ended the authority of lower courts to universally block potentially unconstitutional executive actions by forbidding them from issuing nationwide (“universal”) injunctions while cases are still under review.
The Tahirih Justice Center’s CEO Archi Pyati said: “The strength of our democracy rests on the people’s trust in our Constitution to provide checks on abuse of power. When the executive attempts to rewrite law by fiat, the courts must be able to pause those actions while they review legality and impact. The Supreme Court makes a dangerous gamble with its decision: the subject today is the ability of new Americans to be together with their families and safe from devastating harm. The subject tomorrow could be something even more dire.”
HOUSTON – The Tahirih Justice Center has been serving immigrant survivors in Houston since 2009, and nationwide since 1997. Today, the level of fear among those we serve is at an all-time high. We are deeply alarmed by reports in the Houston Chronicle that the Houston Police Department contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after an immigrant survivor of domestic violence called 911 for help in an emergency. Our Houston Managing Attorney, Libby Hasse, recently spoke out about a similar situation involving one of her clients.
What survivors need in these moments is safety, care, and compassion. Instead, the worst nightmare of every immigrant survivor became a reality. The fact is, when local law enforcement cooperates with and engages in immigration enforcement, it means that immigrant survivors do not feel safe calling 911 in an emergency, reporting crime to the police, or going to court as a victim or witness of a crime.
The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors recently published the results of a survey that demonstrates the consequences of entanglement between federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement – Fear and Silence: 2025 Insights from Advocates for Immigrant Survivors. This report, based on responses from over 170 advocates and legal professionals across the country, revealed 76% of advocates have observed that immigrant survivors have concerns about contacting the police to report domestic violence and sexual assault and 70% reported that immigrant survivors have concerns about going to court for a matter related to their abuser.
Unfortunately, the situation in Texas will only become more challenging for immigrant survivors, as the Texas legislature recently passed a law that will newly require Texas sheriffs’ departments to enter into cooperative agreements with ICE for immigration enforcement. These kinds of agreements will further entangle local law enforcement in Texas with federal immigration enforcement, and that will result in even more fear and hesitation for immigrant survivors needing help in an emergency. When the agency responsible for protecting victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other violent crimes is also taking on immigrant enforcement responsibilities that rest with DHS, immigrant survivors are forced to make impossible choices.
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility; local law enforcement must focus on protecting survivors and ensuring community safety. When those roles blur, survivors stay silent and communities suffer. And when local law enforcement prioritizes enforcement of non-violent civil immigration violations over violent crime, that makes all of our communities less safe.
Tahirih will continue to work with our partners in Houston, including law enforcement, local government, and policymakers, to advocate for policies that prioritize safety and justice for all survivors. We look forward to a day when Houston and every city in the United States is a place where all survivors of domestic and sexual violence feel safe reaching out for help regardless of their immigration status. The safety of our communities depends on it.
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