Silenced by fear: Immigrant survivors face new barriers to safety

Silenced by fear - AI generated

At a time, when many in the U.S. are observing October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the protections given to the immigrant survivors of domestic violence seem to be rapidly diminishing.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants in the U. S. has led to a gutting of many asylum protections that allowed immigrant women, especially, to seek legal protections and assistance from law enforcement.

New anti-DEI and other restrictions on federal funding, stricter application procedures for victim visas and the looming specter of ICE raids are silencing survivors and allowing abusers to go free.

The Chilling Effect: Fear and Silencing of Immigrant Survivors

According to Carmen McDonald, the executive director of the Survivor Justice Center, the current immigration raids happening in the U.S. have spread fear throughout immigrant communities and succeeded in keeping people away from the help they need; thus, making our communities less safe every day, because people are afraid to report.

In addressing reporters at a recent national briefing hosted by American Community Media, McDonald said “Imagine you have fled abuse. …you're ready to stand up in court and face your abuser, but instead of thinking about safety and justice, you wonder, will ICE be waiting at the courthouse doors….? Many fear that their abuser will turn them in.”

McDonald said that her staff is completely overwhelmed by the need and communities are in fear. Those who seek her organization’s services tell her that they “think that they may have seen ICE in their neighborhoods and they panic, not wanting to use public transportation, not wanting to go to the DMV to renew an identification card or even to remote hearings,” she said.

People are being targeted for how they speak, where they work and how they look, leading McDonald to say that the U.S. is experiencing a “public safety crisis.”

“When survivors are silenced, abusers go free. When immigrants are too afraid to call the police, everyone is less safe,” she said.

Legal Roadblocks to Protection

Morgan Wayball, the director of Client Advocacy and Legal Services at the Tahirih Justice Center, discussed how VAWA (Violence Against Women Act), U-visas (for victims of violent crime), and T-visas (for trafficking survivors) were created by Congress and how the current administration has taken steps to undermine access to them.

Using such tactics as "extreme vetting," adding interviews to the VAWA process and eliminating previous guidance that protected survivors from law enforcement actions, the government has made it harder for survivors to access existing protections.

Wayball said that the new restrictions imposed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, have required immigration attorneys to put in more work . They've also made it nearly impossible for unrepresented asylum seekers to win their cases. In reversing the decision in one particular domestic violence case, known as SS FM, Bondi “returned us to the year 2018 where the then Attorney General Sessions declared that women fleeing domestic violence should generally be denied asylum.," Wayball said.

The speakers in the news briefing agreed that  these new restrictions undo decades of progress in recognizing domestic and gender-based violence as human rights violations and they said that the restrictions will lead to more deportations of survivors to countries where they face grave risks, including femicide and homicide.

Service Barriers: Funding Cuts and New Restrictions

Fatima Komalamit, executive director of the Center for the Pacific Asian Family, discussed the challenges faced by domestic violence organizations due to federal funding cuts and to the new requirements, which, again, involve DEI restrictions and gender based language.

Komalamit said that these new restrictions are also creating additional barriers for the delivery of services that organizations, like hers, provide.

“It is really problematic that we have to not only contend with limited resources, limited funding, and ...the trauma and trying to ensure that our survivors are protected within our shelters, especially from ICE. But now we're constantly having to look at what restrictions are coming at us with the funding that we've had for a very long period of time,” Komalamit said.

In spite of all of the restrictions and obstacles, Wayball said, “There are still legal rights. There are still lawyers. There are still laws and so … I would urge folks to know that we are here when survivors need us.”

A Path Forward: Legal Hope and Calls to Action

As if to prove her point, Juana Padilla, a domestic abuse survivor, shared how the support she received from the Survivor Justice Center, over a five year period, allowed her to get out of her abusive situation and obtain her green card that was granted on the basis of her VAWA self-petition.

The speakers shared a list of action items that urged: the media to help tell the stories of survivors; that government and organizations maintain confidentiality protections for survivors and ensure attorneys are not punished for withholding confidential information; that resources and services like hotlines be available for survivors, in multiple languages; that the public advocate for legislative changes and pressure local law enforcement and governments to disentangle from immigration actions and provide a sense of safety for survivors to come forward.

Resources to report domestic abuse: National DV Hotline:800-799-7233

Center for the Pacific-Asian Family, has a 24/7 multilingual crisis hotline that any survivor of domestic and sexual violence can access for free: 1-800-339-3940.

Survivor Justice Center at www.survivorjusticecenter.org

Locally - CORA - Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse:

24-Hour Hotline: 800-300-1080

Legal information line: 650-259-1855

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