Feminist Peace Network

As several recent articles remind us, women immigrants in the U.S. are truly between a rock and a hard place when it comes to domestic violence.  According to the Boston Globe,

“Immigrants account for a disturbingly high share of domestic violence deaths in Massachusetts, advocates say, raising fears that the nation’s heated immigration debate is deterring abuse victims from seeking help.”

“Immigrants make up an estimated 14 percent of the state’s population, but accounted for 26 percent of the 180 domestic violence deaths in Massachusetts from 1997 to 2006, according to the most recent figures from the state Department of Public Health. Nearly all of the 47 victims were women and children.

Illegal immigrants are perhaps the most vulnerable, advocates say, because they fear deportation. Batterers often threaten to report their victims to immigration officials if they go to police. Some batterers who are US citizens or legal residents even refuse to help their spouses apply for legal residency, effectively holding them hostage, advocates say.”

The Globe story also provides some good insights into the  culture/country-specific issues faced by various groups of immigrant women, something it is refreshing to see as so often immigrant women are  lumped together as having the same needs, regardless of where they are from.

“Each community grapples with its own fears. Cambodian women are often afraid of being deported and burdening their families, while Chinese women often fear “losing face” within their communities, according to the Asian Task Force in Chinatown.

Some Brazilian women have said they were afraid to leave their batterers because they had threatened to harm their relatives in Brazil.”

In an article on Women’s ENews, Amy Littlefield examines the impact of workplace raids for women in abusive situations, pointing out that:

“(A)sylum cases depend largely on the individual asylum officer or immigration judge, says Karen Musalo, a San Francisco lawyer who represented Alvarado.

The power afforded individual judges can hurt asylum-seekers. Justice Department data indicate that immigration judges who were chosen between 2004 and 2007 by the Bush administration ruled disproportionately against asylum-seekers, according to news reports in August.”

Littlefield also points out the dangers faced by women who are lured to this country by false promises and the difficulties women face when applying for U-visas,

“To begin the application process, immigrants must pay $545 for themselves and each child they need to include on the application.

“So if you have a woman with five kids, you’re talking about a little over $3,000,” says Orloff. “The real irony here . . . is that they have to pay for it before they get legal work authorization.”

Zulma Garcia notes that U-visa applicants need to provide extensive documentation of their abuse, a major barrier for women who, out of fear, may never have reported to police.”

RH Reality Check reports meanwhile that new requirements for adjustment of immigration status now include the Gardasil vaccine for women and girls between the ages of 11-26, placing an additional burden on women seeking legal status.  As the authors point out,

“These new requirements put increased barriers and additional burdens on women’s access to adjustment of immigration status and applications for visas to enter the U.S. and stoke the already reverberating anxieties among communities of color about the HPV vaccine.”

“While women of color, many who are immigrants, face disproportionate rates of cervical cancer in the U.S. (Latina women get cervical cancer at twice the rate of white women; and Vietnamese women get cervical cancer at five-times the rate of white women), efforts should be made to increase access and education about HPV and the vaccine, rather than creating further impediments to the already onerous immigration process.  The HPV vaccine is out of reach for many women with its high price tag: at a minimum, it costs $360 for the three shot regimen.  Publicly-funded access to the HPV vaccine varies state-to-state, although all low-income adolescents between the ages of 9 through 19 who are either uninsured, Medicaid-eligible, American Indian, or Alaska Native, have access to the vaccine through the federal Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. Immigrant women over the age of 19 may have greater challenges in obtaining the vaccine.  According to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and Uninsured and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), between 45% and 51% of immigrants lack health coverage in the US. The lack of health insurance, coupled with the high cost of the vaccine, limits access to the vaccine for low-income immigrant women.  In addition, for immigration visa applicants abroad, the global availability and accessibility of the vaccine is questionable.”

Finally, the Urban Institute has an excellent report on the harms done to children by immigration raids,

“There are approximately five million U.S. children with at least one undocumented parent. The recent intensification of immigration enforcement activities by the federal government has increasingly put these children at risk of family separation, economic hardship, and psychological trauma.”