The Trump Administration's Assault on Gender Asylum

Tempest Tossed

Two actions of the Trump Administration have sought to make it practically impossible for women who are victims of intimate partner violence to apply for and be granted asylum in the United States. The first is an action by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to overturn a decision of the Board of Immigration appeals granting asylum to a woman who had survived horrific violence at the hands of her husband. The second is a Presidential Proclamation, accompanied by new federal regulations, that automatically denies asylum to persons entering the United States between designated border entry points. Kate Jastram, a senior attorney at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, discusses the lawfulness and morality of these decisions.