A blow to domestic violence asylum

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The Weekly Dispatch

Community-powered immigration news from the Bay Area.

Welcome to El Tímpano’s Weekly Dispatch. I’m Erica Hellerstein, senior immigration, labor and economics reporter.

Back in 2018, at this same time of year during the first Trump administration, I found myself in a crowded migrant shelter in Tijuana. On assignment for Marie Claire magazine, I was speaking with women who had fled domestic abuse, listening as they described their hopes of seeking asylum in the United States, even as the avenues for gaining refuge were growing increasingly precarious.

One woman I met, Gabriela, recounted her escape from her hometown of Michoacán, Mexico, after enduring more than a decade of violent battery, sexual assault, and death threats from her ex-boyfriend. A prominent figure in local government with strong ties to political elites, Gabriela’s ex was, as she put it, “protected by the government, by the police. They offered to make people disappear for him.” When he threatened to kill both Gabriela and her eldest daughter, she decided to leave. She took her children north to ask for asylum, convinced the justice system in her hometown was built to protect abusers rather than their victims.

Gabriela had good reason to worry that coming forward could put her in danger—and that if she were killed, the crime would go unpunished. Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle have some of the world’s highest rates of femicide (the intentional killing of women or girls) along with staggering levels of systemic impunity for gender-based violence. In Mexico alone, femicides rose by 145 percent from 2015 to 2020, even as prosecutions for the murder of women remain extremely rare; by some accounts, less than 25% of femicides in the country result in a conviction.

Yet, even as these dangers loomed at home, the women I met in Tijuana were confronting an additional set of challenges: a U.S. asylum system that was shifting under their feet. In June 2018, just a few months before I met Gabriela, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a ruling that significantly narrowed asylum eligibility for women fleeing domestic abuse. While the Biden administration vacated Sessions’ ruling in 2021, it has now been resurrected by the Trump administration.

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi rolled back the 2021 decision and re-established Sessions’ framework, which determined that women fleeing domestic abuse would “generally” not qualify for asylum. Bondi’s decision has raised alarm among attorneys and advocates for survivors of gender-based violence, who warn it could effectively bar women fleeing domestic abuse from the asylum system.

For those following these developments, the legal back-and-forth can feel dizzying. Advocates have long argued that this kind of pendulum swing—one administration undoing the last with new precedent-setting rulings—creates an impossible whiplash for asylum seekers and the attorneys who represent them. They have instead advocated for legislation that would explicitly recognize gender as an additional basis for asylum.

In the meantime, the stakes are high. Attorneys who represent clients in gender asylum cases are now bracing for the impact of Bondi’s ruling, along with a July decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals restricting asylum for women fleeing gender-based violence.

“Everything combined is really just trying to erect barrier after barrier for women fleeing gendered violence,” said Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies in San Francisco, which is counsel on both the domestic abuse and gender violence cases. Bookey told me she has “faith that we will win again,” but in the meantime, “no doubt, people will be harmed and unlawfully deported.”

The years-long fight over domestic violence asylum

Disagreements over the eligibility of domestic violence asylum claims long predate Bondi. Even before her ruling last week, there had been a years-long back-and-forth over whether women abused by their partners should qualify for asylum. Much of this lack of consensus is rooted in an absence of clarity about where gender and domestic violence claims fit into the asylum system. To understand why, you have to go back in time.

The modern asylum system was borne out of the ravages of the Second World War and a consensus that governments had failed to provide safe haven to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi repression. After the war, when members of the newly formed United Nations gathered for the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocols, they agreed upon a definition of a refugee as someone fleeing persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Applicants today must meet that definition to qualify for asylum.

Notably absent from this list of protected grounds is gender. Many experts see its omission as a product of the era in which the definition was created. At the time, violence against women was not widely recognized as a human rights issue or a matter of government responsibility. Since then, asylum law has evolved to include some gender-related cases (such as female genital cutting), but domestic violence as a basis for asylum has always been contested, culminating most recently with Bondi’s ruling.

Bondi’s decision relies, in part, on an interpretation of domestic violence as “private” conduct between partners, rather than a human rights violation worthy of government protection. Women’s rights advocates have long criticized this framing as regressive and misogynistic. In a statement, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies argued the decision “characterizes domestic violence and other forms of gendered violence as ‘private conduct,’ returning to a long-discarded conception that such abuses are of no concern to the state—the same logic used to protect abusers from accountability and force survivors into the shadows.”

Local impact

It is difficult to determine with precision how many asylum cases Bondi’s ruling may affect, because the government does not track asylum cases by type of persecution, including domestic violence or gender. But even before Donald Trump took office, asylum seekers from Latin America—where many domestic violence asylum claims originate—faced an uphill battle in court. In 2024, 83% of asylum seekers from Mexico lost their cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, while applicants from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala were rejected between 60% and 70% of the time.

In the Bay Area, organizations supporting domestic violence asylum seekers are already preparing for the fallout of Bondi’s decision, not only in terms of how the ruling will affect individual cases, but also in how they must communicate these changes to attorneys and anxious clients.

The Tahirih Justice Center, which provides legal support to immigrant survivors of gender-based violence, currently has 29 asylum cases involving domestic violence in its Bay Area office. “We are getting calls from clients that are saying, ‘I just heard on the news, there’s a new decision, and my case is now going to be denied. Is that true?’” said Morgan Weibel, Tahirih’s director of client advocacy and legal services. Weibel added that Bondi’s ruling will increase the workload for attorneys, who will now “have to map out exactly in every case how this fits under the law. It makes the work double, triple. If you are not represented by an attorney, it’s almost impossible at this point.”

Resource of the Week

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or other forms of abuse, there are several services in Alameda County that can help. Our Spanish-language resource guide highlights local organizations that provide free and confidential therapy, case management, shelter assistance, and immediate crisis care.

Do you know people who could benefit from this information? Share our guide and let them know they can text El Tímpano their questions at (510) 800-8305.

At East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, roughly one-third of clients have cases involving domestic violence. “We have probably hundreds who have cases that would be impacted by the decision,” said Kaveena Singh, the group’s director of immigration legal services.

History suggests the effects of these changes could be significant. After Sessions’ 2018 ruling, an analysis by Human Rights First found the percentage of asylum seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras granted protection fell by nearly 10 points in just five months.

Bookey of San Francisco’s Center for Gender and Refugee Studies said the organization recently held a webinar to remind attorneys that “we’ve been through this before, and it really does take continual fighting for us to win it back.” She added: “What we’re trying to emphasize is that this decision does not, should not, cannot set up a categorical rule against these cases.”

Asylum cases can take years to move through the courts, so it is too soon to know the full effect of Bondi’s ruling. But Bay Area organizations are bracing for the ripple effects, and survivors are already feeling the uncertainty.

I’ll continue monitoring how these shifts play out locally, and I’m eager to hear from local attorneys and organizations working in this space. If you have a story or perspective you’d like to share, I’d like to hear from you. You can reach me at ehellerstein@eltimpano.org.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

— Erica Hellerstein

Ear to the Ground

El Tímpano’s text messaging (SMS) service reaches more than 6,000 Spanish-speaking immigrants across the Bay Area. Since the election, community members have shared questions about the process of applying for asylum and protections for people whose cases are underway. Here are a few of their responses:

I want to know how to apply for asylum.

Quiero información sobre cómo solicitar asilo.

—Antioch resident

Can people who are in the asylum process be deported?

¿Las personas que tengan proceso de asilo las pueden deportar?

—Oakland resident

I need help applying for asylum.

Necesito ayuda para meter mi asilo.

—Bay Point resident

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