Domestic violence victims seeking asylum in Wash.

February 17, 2013 @ 3:01 pm

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - Clara Flores-Aguilar says the beatings began days after she gave birth to her first son.

The pain wouldn't stop for more than two decades. Eyes swollen with tears, Flores-Aguilar said she endured death threats, injuries to her children, a hot oil scalding, a stab wound on her leg and continuous public humiliation at the hand of her alcoholic and drug-abusing husband.

She recites a litany of abuse that only stops when she flees from Honduras, first in the mid-2000's and again two months ago. The 50-year-old is thousands of miles from Honduras, but whether she can start anew in the United States was not known on a recent January afternoon.

Flores-Aguilar was being held at the Tacoma Detention Center as she waited a decision by an immigration judge to allow her asylum case to proceed. For that to happen, the judge must believe her story of abuse.

"I just wanted to escape again," Flores-Aguilar told The Associated Press in Spanish, adding that in August she left a successful small deli behind after her husband said he'd kill her and himself at the end of the year. "I trust in God that he takes all of this into consideration. I don't want to go back."

It's an uphill legal battle. Seeking asylum because of past domestic violence abuse has not been a successful road to take because immigration judges have traditionally declined such requests, attorneys said. But recent court cases have given these women hope.

"We've been having a little more luck with these cases," said Ashley Huebner, an attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center. "Historically, there's been significant fear and hesitation by a lot of adjudicators."

Flores-Aguilar is not alone in Tacoma.

Around 100 women from Central America applying for asylum have been processed through the Tacoma Detention Center over the past two years, said Betsy Tao, an attorney for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project who works at the detention center.

ICE officials couldn't immediately say why there's a small surge of these women in Tacoma, though it may have to do with the way the agency transfers immigrants in custody around the nation. Two years ago, after an influx of Somali asylum seekers came to the U.S. at different ports of entry, large groups of them were transferred to Tacoma.

Asylum requests from Central American women at the nation's ports increased from 95 in fiscal year 2010 to nearly 200 this past year, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration and Services processes far more asylum requests, but their available data does not include requests from Central American women based on domestic violence.

Considering all the types of migration to the United States, these women represent a tiny blip and the numbers are too small to make broad conclusions. But in a place like the Tacoma Detention Center, the women stand out among the hundreds being detained.

Tao said it's not her organization's call to judge whether the stories the women tell are true. They provide the same legal information on what happens now that the women are in custody.

Under law, filing a frivolous asylum claim can lead to a lifetime bar on entering the United States.

One of the last key court cases for domestic violence victims seeking asylum came from a Guatemalan woman named Lesly Yajayra Perdomo in 2010.

She argued in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that violence against women was so rampant in Guatemala she would face the risk of murder if she was sent back. At least 4,400 women were killed in Guatemala between 2000 and 2010 and fewer than 3 percent of the cases are solved, according to the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

At issue in the Perdomo case was defining a "particular social group" that is persecuted and qualifies for political asylum in the United States. Women who fear genital mutilation or victims of domestic abuse have been deemed "social groups" and granted asylum.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered immigration judges to seriously consider granting asylum to Guatemalan women who fear they will be killed.

Recently, advocates launched a campaign to include changes to asylum law in the immigration reform President Barack Obama and Congress are formulating. They want to ensure gender-based asylum claims constitute part of a "particular social group."

That's far away from Flores-Aguilar.

For her, life had one more tragic event. She says her father died of an infection after his small intestines were perforated during a routine hernia surgery. He had decided to undergo surgery because he had taken in Flores-Aguilar's oldest daughter into his house. She didn't find out until she had been taken into custody.

"If I had never come here, he wouldn't have gotten the surgery," she said, crying. "He wouldn't be dead. Why?"

On Feb. 1, an immigration judge deemed Flores-Aguilar's story credible and she was released from the detention center.

She now awaits the final asylum decision.

____

Manuel Valdes can be reached at http://twitter.com/ByManuelValdes


(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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Comments (5)


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  • jstumbo wrote...
    Deport her.
    February 17, 2013 9:45 am
    Do we not have enough domestic violence victims in the US already that we have to import them now? She was afraid of her husband. Could she not find a place in Honduras to get away from her husband? Could she not find a place in Guatemala, as she was passing through, to get away from her husband? Could she not find a place in Mexico, as she was passing through, to get away from her husband? Did she have to come all the way to the Pacific Northwest to get away from her husband? Her husband beating her is just an excuse to come to the US illegally. Also, she probably figured that the US is much easier on illegal immigrants and law breakers than Guatemala and Mexico are.
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  • jstumbo wrote...
    Should every domestic violence victim...
    February 17, 2013 9:50 am
    in the entire world now get asylum and get to come to the US because they are the victim of domestic abuse? There are lots of victims in Asia, should they all get to go to the embassy and get a visa to come to the US? Lots in Africa, should they all get to have a visa to come to the US? Lots in Europe, should they all get visas to come to the US? Lots in Central and South America, should they all get a visa to come to the US? Lots in Canada, should they all get a visa to come to the US? When is enough enough. Cut this crap out. Let the other countries deal with their own victims. We do not have the room to take in another 100 million victims of domestic violence.
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  • cg5611 wrote...
    guess the 2 commentors are male
    February 17, 2013 11:56 am
    The stats are out there - domestic violence towards women in other countries outside the U.S. is HUGE. Male dominated societies may not seem to condone violence towards women, it just isn't procecuted or looked into. Religion plays a role in this, women are to obey their husbands, always and without question, the New Testicles says so. Women are owned by their husbands. This attitude isn't so prevelent in the U.S. and we Americans don't really understand how bad it is overseas. And in the Asian culture male babies are prized girl babies not so much. This attitude in China has led to men vastly out numbering available women. In China, couples could only have one child, if an ultrasound showed it was a girl many couples aborted and tried again hoping for a boy baby. In Muslim countries many men believe an uncovered woman is a prostitute and fair game. India, well that rape and death story's been all over the news. It mostly is in the U.S. that women get a better fair shake than anywhere else in the world. And even that is a challenge to win in court.
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  • shark75 wrote...
    guess cg5611 is liberal
    February 17, 2013 3:29 pm
    Yeah, it sucks outside of the US of a million different reasons. Import the problems? I'm sorry there's domestic violence, I'm sorry there's hunger, I'm sorry you can only have one kid, I'm sorry sorry sorry. You know dam.n well that once we get these people into the US the babysitting ain't over. Sorry, we babysit enough Americans already, no need to import the problem like the other commenter said. They're on their own. If you want to help them so bad start your own foundation, you can have a branch in each country of the world if you want...
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  • cg5611 wrote...
    actually a I'm a conservative
    February 17, 2013 4:55 pm
    I just don't see this woman seeking asylum as big a problem as some of the illegals that come into the U.S. Illegal immigrants are a problem but right now the children running the show in D.C are more of a problem.
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