Asylum at Last?: Matter of A-R-C-G-'S Impact on Domestic Violence Victims Seeking Asylum.

Imagine a woman, a mother, beaten horrifically every week. Burned, bruised, and broken, she pleads for help from the police—but they refuse; her tormenter is her husband and marital relationships are no place for the government. The woman flees, first a few houses away, later, an entire city away. But she is dragged back by her abuser, again and again. Finally, she escapes to another country with her three children in tow. At last she has found a barrier that her abuser cannot cross. Does she deserve asylum? More to the point—will she be granted asylum? Domestic violence is a global issue affecting millions of women. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that it affects more than one in every three women worldwide and recently called it "a global health problem of epidemic proportions." The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that more than one-third of women in the United States have been raped, physically abused, or stalked by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and approximately seven million women reported experiencing such abuse in the year leading up to the survey. More than half of female rape victims reported being raped by an intimate partner. Matter of A-R-C-G- involved a Guatemalan woman, Aminta Cifuentes, similar to the woman described above; she sought asylum to escape abuse by her husband. Previously, similarly situated applicants from Guatemala and elsewhere were denied asylum in the United States because they failed to establish that they were members of a "particular social group" and suffered persecution because of their membership in that group. Ms. Cifuentes succeeded where others had failed. Even more importantly, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) made its decision binding—stunning those who had fought for such a precedential decision for years. The BIA, which hears appeals from immigration judges' decisions, had last issued a precedential decision dealing with domestic violence asylum claims in 1999, when it controversially reversed an asylum grant in Matter of R-A-. Scholars and asylum advocates had long urged the BIA to recognize that domestic violence victims can constitute a "particular social group" under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).9 In August 2014, when the BIA issued Matter of A-R-C-G-, it took a large step toward officially acceding to advocates' pleas, but it did not go as far as some had recommended. The BIA did officially declare that "married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship" are a cognizable particular social group under the INA. The question is, what now? This Note analyzes Matter of A-R-C-G-'s potential impact on domestic violence-based asylum claims in the United States and more specifically on the proposed amendments to the Im- migration and Naturalization Services (INS) regulations governing asylum and withholding eligibility. This Note explores how that judgment may affect how immigration judges interpret and apply asylum law's "particular social group" provision, as well as how they interpret the associated requirement demanding nexus between group membership and the persecu- tion. This Note also recommends that judges expand the holding in Matter of A-R-C-G- and how they should do so; for example, judges should recognize domestic violence victims from other countries as comprising particular social groups. Language: en