Latest update April 5th, 2026 12:45 AM
Jun 24, 2018 News
Asylum seekers can no longer seek asylum in the U.S. citing fears of domestic abuse, gang violence or fear as a LGBTQ individuals.
On June 11, 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions referred a Board of Immigration Appeals case to himself, and issued a decision stating members of particular “social groups,” including domestic violence victims and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) individuals cannot file a petition for asylum. He reversed an immigration appeals court ruling that granted asylum to a Salvadoran woman who said she had been sexually, emotionally and physically abused by her husband (Matter of AB-, 27 I&N Dec. 227 (A.G. 2018)).
Asylum, the right to remain in the country, requires proof that an immigrant faces persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality, political views or membership in a particular social group. It includes private abuses that the home government is unable or unwilling to control.
“The asylum statute does not provide redress for all misfortune,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.”
Sessions’ decision is binding on immigration courts, but could be challenged in the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va.
Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization that provides medical aid to refugees, called Sessions’ ruling “a death sentence” for many of its patients.
Asylum is a protection granted to a foreign national already in the United States or at the border who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.
Attorney Gail Seeram, LL.M., J.D., BBA
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