URGENT ACTION ALERT: Women Asylum Seekers Under Threat!

From: "Heidi Boas"
To:
Subject: URGENT ACTION ALERT: Women Asylum Seekers Under Threat!
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 16:01:57 -0500

**************URGENT**************PLEASE ACT NOW!*************************************URGENT****************

Dear Friends,

The Tahirih Justice Center was alarmed to receive reports that Attorney General John Ashcroft intends to issue regulations *BY MARCH 1* that could severely limit the ability of women to seek asylum based on gender persecution. As individuals supportive of women's and immigrant's rights, we urge you to join us in protesting this action, which could have a devastating effect on women worldwide who are fleeing human rights abuses. Time is running out--please contact Attorney General Ashcroft's office, the White House, and your Senators TODAY to express your concern for protecting women's human rights.

More detailed information released last week by Amnesty International is included below, along with the contact information you will need to voice your concerns. We have also attached a sample letter from Stephen Knight of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies which you may use as a model in drafting your own letter. Please act now--women's lives are at risk!

Amnesty International USA's
REFUGEE ACTION _
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Ste. 300, Washington, DC 20003 T.
202.544.0200x497 F. 202.544- 7852
E-mail. HYPERLINK "mailto:refugee@aiusa.org"refugee@aiusa.org

February 20, 2003
NSA 3/03

USA: Guatemalan Woman, Domestic Abuse, Asylum

SUMMARY:

Ms. Rodi Alvarado fled Guatemala and applied for asylum in the United States in 1995, after suffering ten years of horrific domestic abuse. Her husband raped her repeatedly, attempted to abort their second child by kicking her in the spine, dislocated her jaw, tried to cut her hands off with a machete, kicked her in the genitals, and used her head to break windows. Ms. Alvarado sought assistance from the Guatemalan police and the courts but was refused official protection.

A U.S. Immigration Judge granted Ms. Alvarado asylum in 1996, finding that the abuse that she suffered, together with the government's unwillingness or inability to protect her, constituted persecution. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) appealed that decision, and in 1999, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed that grant in Matter of R-A-. In 2001, Attorney General Janet Reno vacated the decision in Matter of R-A-, issued proposed regulations that recognized gender-related persecution claims, and directed the BIA to decide Matter of R- A- again after the proposed regulations became final. Those regulations never became final, however. Now, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies reports that Attorney General John Ashcroft appears poised to issue regulations that may restrict the scope of gender-related persecution claims and to re-instate the BIA decision in Matter of R-A-, denying protection to Ms. Alvarado.

BACKGROUND:

The Center for Gender & Refugee Studies has been told that the Department of Justice is planning to issue new gender-persecution regulations before March 1, 2003, when the Attorney General will lose his authority to issue such regulations as a result of the Homeland Security Department reorganization.

These new regulations reportedly will be the legal basis for reinstating the 1999 decision of the BIA denying asylum in the case of Matter of R-A-. In that case, the BIA overturned the Immigration Judge's grant of asylum based on a decade of brutal domestic violence against Ms. Alvarado by her husband and the failure of her government to protect her. The new regulations could severely limit women asylum-seekers fleeing honor killing, sexual slavery, domestic violence, and other gross human rights violations from being protected in the United States.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S CONCERNS:

AI believes that the Immigration Judge's grant of asylum to Ms. Rodi Alvarado was the appropriate decision in her case and that Attorney General Reno acted properly in vacating the BIA decision. AI and other groups expressed concern about the BIA's denial of protection to Ms. Alvarado (see NSA 6/99, NSA 5/00), and pointed out the damaging precedent that denying her asylum would have on women fleeing not only domestic violence, but also a wide range of violations of their fundamental human rights.

If Attorney General Ashcroft re-instates the BIA's denial of asylum to Ms. Alvarado and issues regulations that fail to recognize gender-related violence as a legitimate basis for recognition as refugee, it would have wide-reaching, negative implications. First, it would result in the return of Ms. Alvarado to Guatemala, where she faces battering and likely death at the hands of her husband. Second, the decision and regulations would establish national law precluding protection to women in a wide range of cases where their gender is a central reason that they suffer severe violations of their fundamental rights. Finally, it would bring the United States into conflict with recent UNHCR guidelines on gender persecution, and out of step with countries around the world that recognize government-tolerated gender-related violence as a basis for asylum, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

Please send appeals in your own words as quickly as possible to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, to President Bush, and to Acting INS Commissioner Michael Garcia. Express concern about the protection of women refugees fleeing gender persecution and address the following points and concerns:

1. To Attorney General Ashcroft: Urge him not to re-instate the Board of Immigration Appeal's Matter of R-A- decision and not to issue regulations which would provide for the same outcome.

2. To President Bush: Urge him to impress upon the Attorney General the commitment of the United States to protect women victims of domestic abuse whose governments fail to protect them if they are in the United States and seek the protection of our government.

3. To your members of Congress: Urge them to contact Attorney General Ashcroft to express concern about Rodi Alvarado and to call upon the Attorney General not to limit protection of women asylum seekers.

APPEALS TO:

The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Room 440
Washington DC 20530-0001
Fax: 1 202 307 6777
Salutation: Dear Attorney General

The Honorable George W. Bush
President
The White House, Office of the President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Fax: 1 202 456-2461
Salutation: Dear President Bush

STOP ACTION: Please contact the Refugee Program [202/ 544-0200 x 497] if writing letters after February 28.

Additional information [from the Tahirih Justice Center]:

HOW to Contact your Senators:
1) Call toll-free 1-888-508-2974
2) You will be automatically connected with the Senate switchboard.
3) Ask to speak to one of your Senators. (If you don't know who to ask for, look up your Senator at www.senate.gov)

WHAT TO SAY: 1) Introduce yourself as a constituent of the Senator
2) Deliver your message

Phone and email contact information for President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft:

Attorney General Ashcroft
(202) 353-1555 (phone)
AskDOJ@sudoj.gov

President Bush
(202) 456-1111 (comment line)
president@whitehouse.gov

Thank you for your support of this critical issue!

Heidi Boas
Public Policy Associate
John Gardner Fellow
Tahirih Justice Center
P.O. Box 7638
Falls Church, VA 22040
ph: (703) 237-4554
fax: (703) 237-4574
www.tahirih.org

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