A new report by Oxfam America and the Tahirih Justice Center documents how common it is for migrants seeking asylum to experience gender-based violence in Mexico while waiting to access the asylum process in the U.S.  In Surviving Deterrence: How U.S. Asylum Deterrence Policies Normalize Gender-Based Violence, Oxfam America and Tahirih explain how U.S. asylum deterrence policies, such as border closures and expulsions, exacerbate conditions that cause gender-based violence to proliferate at the southern border. The report further asserts that survivors who do manage to apply for asylum face an inequitable and re-traumatizing process on a systemic level.   

Tahirih and the Immigrant Center for Women and Children filed comments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement concerning its proposal to continue using an anonymous “tip” form for suspected immigration violations. The comment notes that use of the form will, in many cases, both harm survivors of domestic violence and violate the confidentiality provisions of the Violence Against Women Act

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a new opinion that will prevent many immigrant survivors of horrific abuse from receiving protection in the United States.

A new report by the Tahirih Justice Center highlights the urgent need for ‘gender’ to be recognized as the sixth protected ground for asylum. In this report, Tahirih asserts that current U.S. asylum laws, as applied, 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 is one of several critical steps needed to transform our immigration system into one that fully understands and meets the needs of survivors.

To ensure equal and enduring access to asylum for survivors of gender-based violence, the U.S. must join other countries in adding a gender as an independent basis for asylum.

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 […]

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 […]