This post is by Jim Feroli, an attorney with Immigration Legal Services (ILS) of Catholic Charities, Washington, DC. He has worked with ILS since 2014 and helps to manage the pro bono program. He focuses on asylum, U Visa and VAWA cases, and removal defense generally. He has also represented immigration clients before the Board of Immigration Appeals and U.S. Courts of Appeals.
I’m a movie fan. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend the film Gladiator. Russell Crowe stars as Maximus, a Roman general who is betrayed, sold into slavery, and forced to fight in gladiator matches. The movie has some good action scenes and strong acting by Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the demented and cruel heir to the throne. It’s about persistence, redemption, and the human spirit and is worth a watch on Netflix.
As an immigration lawyer, I wondered would Maximus, as a slave in ancient Rome, qualify for membership in a particular social group? I’m sure most people watching the film had the same concern. My answer is yes. Maximus’s status is immutable. Slavery in this context is both a status and a condition. As much as Maximus may want to change his status, it is beyond his control. By chance he could be emancipated, but more likely, he will die a slave. Being a member of the group of slaves is also particular. It is distinct and the borders of the group are clear. There is a strong contrast between persons who are slaves—and thus private property—and those who are not. Generally, people should understand if they fit within the group of slaves or free persons, in this case Roman citizens. Lastly, the group is socially distinct. Legally and economically, society recognizes slaves as different. They are deprived the rights to participate in civic life and may be bought and sold by others. Certainly, a runaway slave should qualify for refugee status and not be returned to face additional persecution.(more…)
We knew this was coming. On March 7, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced plans to revisit a Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) case called Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 227 (BIA 2018), which granted asylum to a victim of domestic violence from El Salvador. Now, the Attorney General has reversed A-B- and issued a wide-ranging opinion that seeks to limit asylum for victims of domestic violence and other criminal activity.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions explains why asylum seekers are bad.
There is a lot to say about the AG’s decision, but here I want to focus on two issues: (1) Who is affected by the decision, and (2) Why the decision may not have the broad impact that the AG seems to have intended.
Matter of A-B- most immediately impacts victims of domestic violence. Since 1999, the law related to asylum for DV victims has been evolving. Different lawyers and government agencies have worked to crack open the door for such applicants. The end result of their efforts was Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), which created a convoluted path for victims of DV to obtain asylum. I think it was fairly apparent that A-R-C-G- was a house of cards, waiting for a hostile Administration to knock it down. And in Matter of A-B-, Mr. Sessions has done just that–he has overturned nearly two decades of evolving precedent, and overruled A-R-C-G-.
How, exactly, Mr. Sessions has attempted to block DV asylum seekers is important. To win asylum, an applicant must not only show that she faces harm; she must demonstrate that the harm she faces is on account of a protected ground, such as race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group (“PSG”). So if a persecutor wants to kill you in order to steal your money, that is usually not a basis for asylum. But if the persecutor wants to harm you because he does not like your political opinion, or race, or religion, or PSG, that can form the basis for an asylum claim. A-R-C-G- said that “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” can constitute a PSG, making such people potentially eligible for asylum (assuming they met a host of other requirements).
In A-B-, the Attorney General is saying that this PSG formulation was erroneous, and so victims of DV can no longer use it as a basis for asylum. Such victims can still attempt to win asylum based on other protected grounds (maybe they are a member of an acceptable PSG, for example, or maybe the persecutor seeks to harm them due to their religion or for some other “protected” reason). But the fact is, many of these (mostly) women will no longer qualify for asylum, and will be sent home to face whatever “vile abuse” (Jeff Sessions’s words) that is awaiting them.
The impact of A-B- is clearly meant to reach beyond the realm of DV asylum, but how it will be interpreted outside the immediate circumstances of the case is unclear (at least to me). For example, in the decision, Mr. Sessions writes, “Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.” Indeed, the decision makes multiple references to “gang violence,” but as far as I can tell, gang violence is not an issue in the case. This is strange, since normally, courts decide issues that are before them; not abstract issues that are obliquely related to the subject of the case.
So if they are presented with an asylum claim involving “gang violence,” how will Immigration Judges and Asylum Officers apply Matter of A-B-? It’s difficult to know. The AG’s vague pronouncements about “gang violence” are not easily translated into legal guidance for adjudicators. Of course, adjudicators who want to deny a case can find additional support for such a decision here, but those who want to grant a case are not blocked from doing so.
There’s also the more general issue of “persecution based on violent conduct of a private [as opposed to government] actor,” which could include harm against LGBT individuals, FGM, threats from terrorists groups, etc. The AG states that in such cases, an asylum applicant “must show more than difficulty controlling private behavior… The applicant must show that the government condoned the private actions or at least demonstrated a complete helplessness to protect the victims.” In other words, says the AG, “Applicants must show not just that the crime has gone unpunished, but that the government is unwilling or unable to prevent it.” Maybe I’m missing something here, but this is the exact same legal standard we’ve had since the asylum statute was enacted. As I read Matter of A-B-, I don’t expect big changes for people seeking asylum based on sexual orientation or FGM, or those fleeing terrorists, even though these cases typically involve persecution by non-state actors.
In fact, though Matter of A-B- will block many DV victims from obtaining asylum, I am not sure that its effects will be broadly felt. Much of the decision is hyperbole without substance: “Generally,” asylum claims based on persecution by non-state actors will fail. Generalizations like this aren’t guidance for adjudicators; they are propaganda. And then there are helpful chestnuts like this:
Neither immigration judges nor the Board may avoid the rigorous analysis required in determining asylum claims, especially where victims of private violence claim persecution based on membership in a particular social group…. Furthermore, the Board, immigration judges, and all asylum officers must consider, consistent with the regulations, whether internal relocation in the alien’s home country presents a reasonable alternative before granting asylum.
In other words, adjudicators are supposed to follow the law. No duh.
I don’t know why the AG used Matter of A-B- to make a broad statement against people fleeing violence from non-state actors (as opposed to limiting his ruling to the facts of the case). But the decision’s platitudes and generalizations are not conducive to the type of legal precedent that can guide decision makers.
Perhaps Mr. Sessions hopes that his anti-asylum rhetoric and exhortations to “follow the law” will set the tone for adjudicators at the Immigration Courts and Asylum Offices. Maybe he believes that his disdain for immigrants can somehow be transmitted through the bureaucracy to the men and women deciding cases. But in my experience, IJs and Asylum Officers are not lemmings who exist to do the AG’s bidding. They are adjudicators empowered to interpret the law.
After Matter of A-B-, some applicants will have a tougher time obtaining asylum; others will be unaffected. In a strange sense, this decision gives me hope. If this is the best Mr. Sessions can do, it is not enough to end asylum as we know it. Thanks to Mr. Sessions, many domestic violence victims will be returned to face harm, but our country will continue to offer protection to many others. For that, I am thankful.
The Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, has been busy “certifying” cases to himself in order to (apparently) reduce protections for certain asylum seekers. I want to talk about two cases in particular, but first, let’s talk about the process that Mr. Sessions is following.
“Oh Magoo, you’ve done it again!”
The decisions in question involve cases that were before the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA” or “Board”), the administrative appellate body that interprets the nation’s immigration laws. The BIA has been called (sometimes derisively) the “Supreme Court of immigration law.” The BIA is not actually a court in the normal sense of the word (and, by the way, neither are the Immigration Courts). Instead, it is an office within the U.S. Department of Justice. The leader of the Department of Justice is the Attorney General (“AG”). So in essence, the BIA derives its power from the AG, who is the ultimate “decider” when it comes to BIA cases.
What has been happening recently is that Mr. Sessions has been “certifying” cases from the BIA to himself. Basically, this means that he is taking the cases from the BIA and changing the Board’s decisions. In a sense, this is nothing new–previous AGs have done the same thing on occasion. But the concern here is two-fold: Substantively, the AG seems to be moving towards limiting the scope of asylum protections in some types of cases, and procedurally, the AG’s actions do not comport with due process of law, at least as that concept is understood in non-totalitarian countries.
The first case I want to discuss is Matter of E-F-H-L-, 27 I&N Dec. 226 (AG 2018). In that case, the AG vacated a 2014 BIA decision (also called Matter of E-F-H-L-) and returned the matter to the Immigration Judge (the letters in the case name refer to the alien’s initials). The 2014 case stands for the proposition that an asylum applicant is entitled to a hearing on the merits of her application, including an opportunity to provide oral testimony and other evidence, “without first having to establish prima facie eligibility for the requested relief.” In other words, the case is widely viewed as re-affirming the right to a hearing, even if the asylum claim, as articulated by the applicant, is legally insufficient.
In civil litigation, there is something called “failure to state a claim.” Judges routinely dismiss lawsuits if they determine that a litigant’s claim–even if taken as true–does not entitled the litigant to relief. In our adversarial system, this makes sense. Why waste a court’s time (or the jury’s time) adjudicating the facts of a case if those facts do not entitle the claimant to any relief? And why not do the same thing for asylum applicants?
The main objection is that many asylum applicants are unrepresented, and do not know how to articulate their claims effectively. Only in the course of testimony might an applicant’s claim become apparent (and that is especially true in a case like E-F-H-L-, where there is a complicated “particular social group” analysis). Most Immigration Court hearings are fairly truncated affairs to begin with, and so further curtailing an applicant’s ability to present his case makes it even more likely that overworked judges will take the easy route and dismiss an asylum claim before the applicant is able to fully develop his case. The result, of course, will be that legitimate asylum seekers are denied protection.
So it is concerning that Mr. Sessions has vacated E-F-H-L-. But what comes next is not yet clear. The case has been returned to the Immigration Court for further decision-making, and as I read the case, it seems unlikely that the Judge or the BIA would need to rule on E-F-H-L-‘s right to a full hearing. According to the AG’s decision, E-F-H-L- married a U.S. citizen and withdrew his asylum claim. If that is true, there is little reason to think we will hear anything more about this particular case.
The problem, though, is that the AG presumably vacated E-F-H-L- for a reason. I expect the reason is that he wants to create a new standard (in a different alien’s case) for adjudicating asylum claims. What this standard will be, we do not yet know, but given Mr. Sessions’s jaundiced view of asylum seekers, I’m not feeling optimistic. Whatever he does, Mr. Sessions is limited by the statute and by the courts, and so hopefully, it will not be as bad as we fear.
The second case I want to discuss is Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec. 227 (BIA 2018). Mr. Sessions has certified that BIA case to himself and requested new briefs (legal arguments) from the parties and from amici (interested organizations). The question Mr. Sessions wants briefed is this:
Whether, and under what circumstances, being a victim of private criminal activity constitutes a cognizable “particular social group” for purposes of an application for asylum or withholding of removal.
We don’t know, but presumably the goal here is to block asylum seekers who fear harm from “private criminal activity.” This might, for example, block people fleeing harm from gangs in Central America, or victims of domestic violence. It potentially affects other types of asylum claims as well.
The main problem is that Mr. Sessions has asked for briefing on a question that is vague. He has not given us the facts of the case, thus making it difficult to write an effective brief, since cases are fact specific. He even tried to hide the name of the attorney representing A-B-; perhaps in an effort to block advocates from learning more about the case.
This is not how due process works, and I imagine that whatever decision the AG issues in A-B- will be vulnerable to review by the federal appellate courts, which tend to look askance at such blatant (and amateurish) violations of due process.
That the Attorney General of the United States would engage in such obvious procedural misfeasance is very concerning. Since we don’t know what the AG is really asking for, his request for amici briefs is completely disingenuous. Indeed, even if you favor limiting the scope of asylum, you should be concerned when our country’s top law enforcement officer demonstrates such contempt for the rule of law.
Where the AG is heading with all this, we shall see. The widespread belief among advocates is that in anticipation of DACA and TPS ending, Mr. Sessions is planning to roll back protections for certain asylum seekers, specifically people facing harm from gangs and also victims of domestic violence. But he could also be targeting LGBT asylum seekers who fear community (as opposed to government) persecution, victims of female genital mutilation, and victims of terrorist groups, among others.
Finally, it’s difficult not to see the irony here. For years, advocates for asylum seekers have been litigating to expand protections for a wider range of persecuted individuals, particular women, who often face harm not contemplated by the people (mostly white men) who came up with the definition of “refugee” after World War II. However, by pursuing litigation—rather than legislation—we have left ourselves vulnerable to a restrictionist Administration that now seeks to contract that definition.
Don’t get me wrong—I certainly don’t blame advocates for our current woes; we tried and failed legislatively at least once. But I do hope that if the pendulum swings back, and the public mood becomes more favorable, we will try again to create a refugee law that is more in-tune with the types of harm individuals face today. Until then, we are stuck litigating our clients’ cases in an uncertain environment, against an Attorney General who has little interest in playing by the rules.
Just in time for Halloween, the Witchcraft & Human Rights Information Network (“WHRIN”) has released a report called “Witchcraft Accusations and Persecution; Muti Murders and Human Sacrifice.” The report was prepared for the United Nations Expert Workshop on Witchcraft and Human Rights, which was held last month, and it discusses the wide-spread and under-reported human rights problems related to witchcraft and other harmful traditional practices. From the WHRIN report–
Persecution.
In numerous countries around the world, harmful witchcraft related beliefs and practices have resulted in serious violations of human rights including, beatings, banishment, cutting of body parts, and amputation of limbs, torture and murder. Women, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities, such as persons with albinism, are particularly vulnerable. Despite the seriousness of these human rights abuses, there is often no robust state led response.
The report indicates that the “exact numbers of victims of such abuses is unknown and is widely believed to be underreported.” “At the very least,” the report continues, “it is believed that there are thousands of cases of people accused of witchcraft each year globally, often with fatal consequences, and others are mutilated and killed for witchcraft-related rituals.” The number of cases—and the level of violence against victims–seems to be rising, and no area of the world is immune, though most of the documented cases are found in India (120 reported cases in 2016), Nigeria (67 cases), Zimbabwe (29), and South Africa (28).
This is all very sobering, and sad. In my work, I have represented a number of victims of traditional practices who have filed for asylum in the United States. One memorable case involved a young man from Rwanda who was gay. His family decided that he was possessed by demons, and so they had him kidnapped and held in a rural area where he was subject to a three-week exorcism ritual by some type of priest. The ritual involved beatings and starvation, among other things. We argued that all this amounted to past persecution on account of a particular social group—gay people. The government accepted our argument and approved the man’s application for asylum.
The success of our case was due, perhaps, to the fact that our client easily fit within a protected category for purposes of asylum (there are five protected categories—race, religion, nationality, political opinion, and particular social group, and under U.S. law, it is well-established that LGBT individuals can constitute a particular social group; unless a case fits within a protected category, asylum will be denied). Not all victims of witchcraft-related persecution fit so neatly into the asylum scheme, as the WHRIN report makes plain—
Those accused of witchcraft, or at risk of such accusations, are not a well-recognised vulnerable group [under the asylum law], and they do not accrue specially recognised rights as such. They do, however, benefit from human rights protections which are available to all people. Those who face persecution in this way may flee and seek protection in other countries, but their situation is precarious even in exile.
The WHRIN report primarily discusses British law, but asylum applicants in the U.S. could face a similar problem. I have not seen a case where “witches” or “people accused of witchcraft” has been found to be a particular social group (“PSG”) for purposes of asylum, but it seems that a strong argument could be made in favor of such a PSG. Persecution of “witches” might also be couched in terms of imputed religion—maybe the persecutors view the alleged witch in religious terms and would harm her for that reason. If there is an ethnic or racial component to the persecution, that might also allow the applicant’s case to fit into a protected category.
Besides witchcraft, the WHRIN report discusses other harmful traditional practices: Human sacrifice and murder for body parts, which are used in certain magic rituals (sometime called Muti murder). People with albinism are particularly vulnerable to such attacks (I wrote about that here), and they would likely constitute a PSG under U.S. asylum law. But other people targeted in this way might not easily fit into a PSG.
To win asylum, the applicant must show that she faces harm “on account of” a characteristic that the applicant herself possess (for example, her race) or on a characteristic that the persecutor “imputes” to the victim (for example, maybe the persecutor incorrectly believes the applicant is a government opponent and seeks to harm her for that reason). In the case of some traditional practice, the victim may not be able to show that the harm is “on account of” a characteristic or an imputed characteristic, and then asylum would be denied. In our exorcism case, for example, we had a relatively easy job, since our client was gay and was harmed due to his sexual orientation. But what if he was not gay and he was being “exorcised” for some other reason–maybe he was an unruly child and his parents wanted to “cure” him? Such a case would present a real challenge under U.S. asylum law.
Fortunately, there are some resources available. The WHRIN is the obvious starting point. The Forced Migration Current Awareness blog also has a list of resources, and UNHCR has a comprehensive report about witchcraft accusations against children. Given the severity of the harm and the likelihood that the problem is spreading, it seems to me that more work needs to be done in this area. The recent attention from the UN is a good start. Hopefully, we will see those efforts continued and expanded.
Odds are, you’ve never heard of Sture Petrén. But if you are a refugee who has escaped persecution on account of female genital mutilation, domestic violence or sexual orientation, you may owe him your life.
If you’ve received asylum based on PSG, you should send your thank yous to Sture Petrén.
Sture Petrén—full name: Bror Arvid Sture Petrén—was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 3, 1908. He studied law and philosophy at Lund University, and then served in various law courts in his home country from 1933 to 1943, when he was appointed as an appellate judge. In 1949, he was recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served as the Director of the Legal Department for the next 15 years. More significantly from the point of view of history, Judge Petrén was appointed to the Swedish delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, where he served from 1948-61. He went on to other prestigious posts domestically and internationally. He was a member–and eventually President–of the European Commission of Human Rights, he was a member of the International Court of Justice, and he served as a judge on the European Court of Human Rights. In 1972, Judge Petrén was knighted by the Swedish king. He died in Geneva on December 13, 1976.
For all his accomplishments, it seems that Judge Petrén’s most notable achievement is probably one that he himself did not think much about at the time: In November 1951, he added the phrase “particular social group” to Articles 1 and 33 of the United Nations Refugee Convention.
In the fall of 1951, the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons held a series of meetings to hash out the Convention on the Status of Refugees. The original Convention listed four protected categories: race, religion, nationality, and political opinion. The Swedish delegation, led by the good Judge, introduced an amendment to Article 1 adding the phrase “particular social group” or PSG. Judge Petrén offered little in the way of explanation for the addition. In the transcript from November 26, he says only that the other protected categories suggest the inclusion of a “reference to persons who might be persecuted owing to their membership of a particular social group.” “Such cases existed,” said the Judge, “and it would be as well to mention them explicitly.” Without further discussion, the amendment was adopted that same day. Fourteen members voted in favor of the amendment, none opposed, and eight abstained (though history apparently does not record how each country voted).
A week later, Judge Petrén introduced the same amendment to Article 33 (non-refoulment), so it would be in conformity with Article 1 (modern-day U.S. immigration law derives the asylum/refugee definition from Article 1 of the Convention; the Withholding of Removal definition comes from Article 33).
So does the origin of the phrase PSG shed any light on the term’s meaning today? What—if anything—can we learn from the historic record?
First, it seems that Judge Petrén’s addition to the Convention was based on the draft of a planned law in Sweden called the National Alien Act, which went into effect in 1954. The National Alien Act was, in turn, based on the existing Swedish practice of protecting aliens who were members of a PSG, though Swedish law from the 1950s apparently does not define PSG. To the extent that the modern-day Swedish Alien Act is instructive, it seems clear that sexual orientation and gender were not consider particular social groups. The modern law offers protection to people in a PSG, homosexuals, and people who face persecution on account of gender. As one commentator observed, it would be superfluous to separately list PSG, sexual orientation, and gender, if sexual orientation and gender were considered PSGs.
I could not find a copy of the old Swedish law (upon which the Convention definition of PSG was purportedly based), but it would be very surprising—even for a forward-thinking country like Sweden—if the 1950s law separately protected people based on gender and (especially) sexual orientation. My guess is that the Swedish law listed PSG as a protected category, but left the term undefined. Of course, this does not mean that PSG was meant to encompass sexual minorities and women under Swedish law or under the Convention definition. The Dead White Men who created the Convention may have been progressive for their time (though there are arguments that they were not), but it seems more than unlikely that the idea of specifically protecting gays and women was even on their radar. At least I could find no evidence in the historic record to support such a notion.
A second question is what Judge Petrén understood the term PSG to mean. I am not sure whether his understanding is relevant to anything other than historical curiosity, but it seems almost certain that he had no intention of dramatically (or even modestly) expanding the protected categories. Rather, PSG was meant as a safety net to catch people who did not easily fit into the other categories–people like aristocrats and linguistic minorities, to name a few. Indeed, Judge Petrén’s comments indicate a realist, as well as an idealist. After noting that Sweden was a country of asylum in the past, he states, “but the fact must be taken into account that its capacity for absorbing large numbers [of refugees] was limited and that, particularly in the present serious state of world affairs [post-WWII], considerations of national security must play a certain part.” This does not necessarily sound like someone who wanted to greatly expand the classes of people covered by the refugee definition.
To a large degree, of course, all this is academic. The goings-on in 1951 are a long way from our reality today. Perhaps an Originalist—like a Justice Scalia—might parse Judge Petrén’s words and look back to post-War Swedish law to suss out some meaning that informs our definition of PSG today. However, given that the Convention and mid-20th Century Swedish law are pretty removed from current U.S. asylum law, the Originalist inquiry seems like a stretch.
Moreover, laws and norms change over time. The vagaries of the past are fodder for debate today. To me, such debates are healthy and—hopefully—lead us in the direction of Justice. Although Judge Petrén probably had no intention of altering the refugee definition so dramatically, he certainly planted the seed that led to protection for many thousands of people. Intended or not, that is his extraordinary legacy.
Special thanks to Ali and Behnam for their help with this article.
In a recent decision, Matter of A-R-C-G-, 26 I&N Dec. 388 (BIA 2014), the BIA held that “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” can constitute a cognizable particular social group (“PSG”) for purposes of asylum. The decision is significant because it marks the first time that the Board has published a decision essentially endorsing asylum for victims of domestic violence. Applicants who seek asylum under this standard will still need to prove that the level of harm they face constitutes persecution, that they cannot relocate somewhere else within their country, and that their government is unable or unwilling to protect them.
This decision on PSG has been a long time coming, but–at least in my opinion–it does not go far enough.
Guatemalan Women celebrate their new particular social group.
In 2004, in a case called Matter of R-A-, DHS acknowledged that domestic violence could form the basis for an asylum claim. In that case, DHS argued in a brief that R-A- should receive asylum based on domestic violence. In its brief, DHS defined the PSG as “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship.” Sound familiar? And that was 10 years ago.
Matter of R-A- never resulted in a published BIA decision (though R-A- herself received asylum in 2009). Since the brief was made public in 2004, asylum attorneys have relied on it to advocate for their clients, presumably with some success (since there is no data on the number of cases granted based on domestic violence, it is impossible to know for sure).
To me, the PSG “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” is awkward and contrived. Moreover, to receive asylum based on a PSG, the applicant must show that she was persecuted “on account of” her membership in the PSG. In other words, the persecutor harmed the applicant because she is a member of the PSG. I am not convinced that the husband was harming A-R-C-G- because she was a married woman who was unable to leave the relationship. He would have harmed her whether or not she was married and whether or not she was able to leave the relationship. The husband may have had access to A-R-C-G- because he was married to her and because she was unable to leave, but he was not motivated to harm her for those reasons.
It seems to me that there is a simpler, more elegant PSG that would have been appropriate for this case: “Women.” I suspect that I am not alone in this opinion. In amici curiae briefs, counsels for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies argued that gender alone should be enough to constitute a PSG. Also, at least one federal circuit court (you guessed it – the Ninth) has held that “women in Guatemala” might constitute a particular social group.
“Women” makes sense as the PSG in this case. The evidence in the case suggests that the husband would have persecuted any woman who he was with–whether or not she was married or able to leave him. Further, country condition evidence from Guatemala makes clear that women in that country live in dire circumstances. In its decision, the Board notes that Guatemala “has a culture of ‘machismo and family violence,'” including sexual offenses and spousal rape. The victims of this violence are, for the most part, women. And, by the way, they are not just “Guatemalan women.” I imagine that if a Salvadoran woman, or a Nicaraguan woman, or a Japanese woman lived in Guatemala and integrated into the society, she would face the same problems as a Guatemalan woman. For this reason, the PSG should be “women,” as opposed to “Guatemalan women.”
But the BIA was not willing to go that far. After noting that counsel for Amici argued in favor of gender alone as the PSG, the Board held, “Since the respondent’s membership in a particular social group is established under the aforementioned group, we need not reach this issue.”
Perhaps that is the way of things. It’s best not to push the law too far, even if it makes logical sense, and even where it would protect additional people. A decision granting asylum to women (or men) who face persecution solely because of their gender would likely open the door to many more asylum seekers. Given the current state of affairs in the asylum world–the border crisis, partisan scrutiny from Congress, the backlog–maybe it’s best not to open the door too far. Maybe a relatively limited decision like Matter of A-R-C-G- is the best we could have hoped for.
I don’t mean to minimize the importance of A-R-C-G-. It is obviously a great win for the alien in that case (though the decision does not finally grant her asylum, it seems very likely that that will be the end result), and it will certainly help many women who face harm from domestic abusers. However, the decision codifies a landscape where women–many without the resources available to people like A-R-C-G- and R-A—will be forced to articulate complicated PSGs and demonstrate that they are members of those PSGs. I am not sure how many poor refugee women will actually be able to do all that.
A-R-C-G- was persecuted because she was a woman. Not because she was a Guatemalan woman, not because she was married, and not because she was unable to leave her husband. Matter of A-R-C-G- is an important step towards protecting women victims of domestic violence. Maybe next time, the BIA will take a giant leap.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”) posits that the number of gay and lesbian people receiving asylum in the United States based on their sexual orientation has surged in recent years and that most such people come from countries in Central America where homosexuality is not criminalized (as opposed to places like Ugandan, where loving the wrong person is a hanging offense). The article, by Joel Millman, concludes that LGBT asylum cases from Mexico and Central America are more likely to be granted than most other types of asylum cases from those countries.
More gay people than ever are fleeing persecution.
Heaven forbid that I should agree with the WSJ (Slate certainly didn’t in a piece that pretty clearly misreads the Journal article), but the anecdotal and statistical evidence supports the notion that more people are seeking asylum based on sexual orientation and that those claims are often more likely to succeed than claims by other people from the same countries. But of course, as a certified curmudgeon, I cannot completely agree with the Journal piece, and indeed, I have a few points to take issue with. Then I’d like to pose a question: Is it really easier–as the WSJ claims–for LGBT applicants to obtain asylum in the United States?
First, the issues. To reach his conclusion that more LGBT people are seeking asylum, Mr. Millman relies on two main sources—statistics from the U.S. government and information from Immigration Equality, probably the premier LGBT asylum organization in the country.
As to the statistics, the government does not keep data on the number of people who receive asylum based on sexual orientation. As a rough proxy, the WSJ looked at the percentage of cases granted based on “particular social group” or PSG, the protected category most often used in LGBT asylum cases. The Journal found that as a percentage of total cases, the number of PSG cases has increased over the last several years (from about 12% at the end of the G.W. Bush Administration to 15.7% today).
I am not convinced that this metric tells us a whole lot about the number of gay asylum cases, however. Many people seek asylum based on PSG–gays and lesbians, victims of domestic violence, people fleeing gang persecution, victims of female genital mutilation, to name the most obvious–and so an increase in the percentage of asylum seekers relying on PSG does not necessarily mean that the number of LGBT asylum seekers has gone up. Also, concurrent with our country’s more liberalized approach to LGBT asylum claims, we have expanded protection for other categories of people who fall under PSG. So while the modest increase in asylum seekers relying on PSG supports the notion that LGBT claims are up, I don’t think this data is incredibly significant.
In my opinion, the anecdotal evidence for an increase in the number of LGBT cases is more convincing. According to the WSJ: “Last year, just one New York-based advocacy group, Immigration Equality, helped put 279 LGBT foreigners into the asylum process, a 250% increase from 2009.” That pretty well comports with what I’ve been seeing in DC and what I’ve heard from other lawyers, and so I believe the number of LGBT claimants is up, but by how much, we don’t really know (I have harped on this before, but this lack of reliable data again illustrates the need for better information about asylum seekers).
Another quibble with the article is the WSJ’s comparison of LGBT asylum seekers from Mexico and Central America, where homosexuality is not illegal and—in fact—where laws theoretically protect gay people, with other countries whose governments condemn homosexuality or make it illegal. The article notes that of the top 10 countries with the most PSG grants (where PSG is a proxy for LGBT), only three have laws against homosexuality. This all strikes me as basically meaningless. We receive many more asylum seekers from our own neighborhood, so there is no surprise that most PSG claims come from nearby countries. And while it is interesting that three distant countries (Kenya, Ethiopia, and Guinea) with anti-gay laws produce large numbers of PSG asylees, we have no way of knowing how many of these cases are LGBT; particularly since all three countries have high instances of female genital mutilation, which also falls into the PSG category.
The bottom line for me is that, while the increased number of PSG cases is consistent with an increase in LGBT claims, the statistics don’t really tell us much. But based on the anecdotal evidence and my own experience, it seems clear that more people than before are seeking asylum based on sexual orientation. Whether this constitutes a “surge” in LGBT claims, as the WSJ concludes, is debatable given the lack of data.
Finally, do LGBT claimants have an easier time winning asylum than others?
As the WSJ points out, an LGBT case from Central America is certainly more likely to succeed than the average case from the region. According to the Journal, Immigration Equality’s “success rate for closed cases [is] 98%, roughly quadruple the batting average of the typical asylum-seeker.” (Though I would be curious to know how they define “success” when they came up with this figure). Of course, many cases from Central America are based on gang persecution, which does not easily fit within a protected category for purposes of asylum. Since LGBT asylum seekers fall within a protected category–PSG–it is not surprising that they have a higher success rate than average. I would imagine that other cases where there is an obvious protected ground–like political cases, for example–are also much more likely to succeed than the average case.
Also, as the Journal points out, for LGBT asylum seekers, the likelihood of success is particularly high because country conditions are particularly bad. In our office, we see a decent number of LGBT asylum applicants, and they often have been subject to severe physical and psychological violence. So based on my own experience, the information in the WSJ piece rings true.
In the end, we don’t have the data to make a firm conclusion about how much “easier” it is for LGBT claimants to obtain asylum, but it seems likely that the success rate for such cases is higher than for many other types of cases. Given the threats and violence against gay people around the world, it seems to me that a high asylum grant rate is completely justified.
