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Women and Women's Rights

Sessions’ Draconian Asylum Decision: The U.S. Turns Its Back on Domestic Violence Victims

Sessions’ ruling in Matter of A-B- not only blocks a pathway to safety for domestic violence victims, it also undermines the United States’ reputation as one of the few true beacons of hope and liberty in the world and a country bent on preventing and responding to violence against women. 

<p>Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks on immigration enforcement during the Sheriff&#8217;s Coalition Annual Spring Meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S, April 11, 2018.</p>
Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivers remarks on immigration enforcement during the Sheriff’s Coalition Annual Spring Meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S, April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

By experts and staff

Published
  • Caroline Bettinger-Lopez
  • Rachel B. Vogelstein
    Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow and Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program

On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a radical decision that will undoubtedly result in death or significant harm to some of the world’s most vulnerable women: victims of domestic violence who live in countries that do not, or cannot, protect them from their abusive partners. Over the past two decades, the United States has provided a safe haven to many of these women through its asylum laws. In a heartless move that flouts established U.S. law and international human rights standards, Sessions found that a domestic violence victim from El Salvador—perhaps the most dangerous country on earth in which to be a woman—would not qualify for asylum, even though her own country had utterly failed to protect her.

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