Karen Musalo

Inside the ‘pure hell’ of Violence against Women in Honduras

PBS NewHour  

2015-10-24

John Carlos Frey, PBS NewsHour

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For some women fleeing violence, safety means changing US law ‘stuck in the past’

PRI  

2015-09-07

Monica Campbell, PRI.

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Transgender Women Who Fear Death in Mexico Granted Relief by 9th Circuit

Daily Journal  

2015-09-04

John Roemer, Daily Journal.

Ruling Changes Little: Guatemalan Women Still Victims

AZ Central  

2015-05-18

Giovanna Dell'Orto, AZ Central.

The Right to Asylum: Why Europe Has to Take in Migrants Fleeing Persecution

Vox  

2015-04-22

Dara Lind, Vox, April 22, 2015.

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Credible fears: Central American Women Seek Asylum

Christian Century  

2015-03-03

Amy Frykholm, Christian Century.

United States Must Protect Migrant Children

Daily Californian  

2014-10-07

Karen Musalo, Daily Californian.

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The U.S. Wants to Help Central Americans – By Letting Fewer Refugees In

Vox  

2014-10-01

Dara Lind, Vox Media.

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Victory of Domestic Violence Survivors Seeking Asylum

Brown Political Review  

2014-09-25

Ashleigh McEvoy, Brown Political Review.

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Battered Women Deserve a Safe Haven in the U.S.

Los Angeles Times  

2014-09-19

Karen Musalo, Los Angeles Times.

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Immigration Court Gives First Approval of Asylum for Domestic Abuse

AllGov  

2014-09-01

Steve Straehley, AllGov.

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US Court Sets Precedent by Ruling Guatemalan Domestic Violence Victim Can Seek Asylum

teleSUR English  

2014-08-31

Cyril Mychalejko, teleSUR English (Reprinted in Truthout, September 3, 2014).

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Board of Immigration Appeals Recognizes Domestic Violence as a Basis for Asylum

Other Worlds  

2014-08-31

Other Worlds.

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In First for Court, Woman Is Ruled Eligible for Asylum in U.S. on Basis of Domestic Abuse

New York Times  

2014-08-29

Julia Preston, New York Times.

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Asylum Standards Weighed before Court

Daily Journal  

2014-08-11

John Roemer, Daily Journal.

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You Can’t Fix the Child Migrant Crisis without Understanding Asylum. Here are 6 Facts

Vox Media  

2014-07-30

Dara Lind, Vox Media.

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No Easy Solutions for Child Migrant Crisis

Marketplace Morning Report, NPR  

2014-07-25

Dan Bobkoff, Marketplace Morning Report, NPR.

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Meet Luis. He Fled Gangs in Honduras. But the U.S. Probably Won’t Help Him: Our Asylum Laws Are Failing Central American Migrants

The New Republic  

2014-06-26

Laura Tillman, The New Republic.

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Hilary Clinton Wants Child Migrants Sent Back. Here’s What That Would Look Like,

Vox Media  

2014-06-19

Dara Lind, Vox Media.

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Legless Cyclist Rides for Asylum Seekers

CBS News  

2013-11-09

CBS News.

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A Sex Trafficking Victory that Shows just how Broken the System is

New Republic  

2013-08-29

Molly Redden, New Republic.

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Snowden in Legal Limbo, his Flight Blocked by Legal, Political Obstacles

McClatchy DC  

2013-07-02

Hannah Allam, McClatchy DC.

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Snowden’s Russia Problem: Why a Libertarian Activist Made Friends with Authoritarian States

Washington Post  

2013-06-24

Max Fisher, Washington Post.

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Anger at U.S. Complicates Efforts to Capture Snowden

McClatchy DC  

2013-06-24

Hannah Allam and Tim Johnson, McClatchy DC.

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Could Bradley Manning Help Edward Snowden Win Political Asylum?

Washington Post  

2013-06-10

Max Fisher, Washington Post.

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Should Battered Women be Given Asylum in the U.S.?

MinnPost  

2013-03-01

Cynthia Boyd, MinnPost.

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Violence Fuels Domestic Rise in Central American Asylum-Seekers

KPBS  

2013-02-25

Jill Replogle, KPBS.

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Refugees: How Nations can Meet their International Obligations to Protect the Persecuted

Roundtable at the U.S. Embassy  Madrid, Spain

2015-10-30

Fronteras y barreras: Retos para las refugiadas en España y Estado Unidos (Borders and Barriers: Challenges for Refugee Women in Spain and the United States)

Speaker at the XX Coloquio anual sobre la mujer (20th Annual Colloquium on Women)  Sponsored by the International Institute, Madrid, Spain

2015-10-30

Credibility, Documentary Evidence and Expert Witnesses in Asylum Claims

Federal Bar Association, Immigration Law Conference  Memphis, TN

2015-05-16

Domestic Violence and Fear of Gang Cases in the Aftermath of A-R-C-G-

Federal Bar Association, Immigration Law Conferece  Memphis, TN

2015-05-16

Fleeing Violence: Finding Prison: The Treatment of Migrant Women in Flight from Domestic Violence in the US Immigration System

Presentation  James E. Rogers College of Law, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

2015-04-23

Child Migration: A Regional Challenge to Human Rights Commitment

Ninth Circuit of Appeals  San Francisco, CA

2015-04-03

The Battle for Equality in Refugee Law: The Resistance to Protection of Women and Children

Biever Guest Lecture Series  Loyola University, New Orleans College of Law

2015-03-19

Excluding Those Worthy of Protection: How US Interpretation of International Refugee Norms have Consistently Narrowed Protection

Loyola Law School Faculty Colloquia  Loyola University, New Orleans College of Law

2015-03-19

Conceptualizing Children's Asylum Claims

Immigration Theory and Practice Workshop  Yale School of Law

2014-11-06

Child Migrants: A Journey of Desperation and Hope

Center for Latin American Studies  UC Berkeley

2014-09-01

Addressing the Asylum Crisis: Religious Contributions to Rethinking Protection in Global Politics

Presentation  Washington, DC

2014-05-01

Forensic Psychiatry and Immigration: Cross Cultural Competency (Panelist)

Panel Discussion  San Diego, CA

2013-10-24

Immigration and Its Adversities: Mental Illness, Detention and Deportation (Panelist)

American Psychiatric Association  San Francisco, CA

2013-05-22

Hot Topics in Asylum - Particular Social Group Issues (Panelist)

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services  Washington, DC

2011-10-20

Immigration Law Seminar (Panelist)

Memphis, TN  8th Annual Federal Bar Association

2011-05-13

Gender Justice in the Americas (Panelist)

University of Miami School of Law  Miami, FL

2011-02-25

Immigration Remedies and Procedural Rights of Migrant Children and Adolescents

2015-02-01

The central tenet of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is that the “best interests” of the child must be a primary consideration in all action and decisions affecting children. The best interests of the child is also a key principle in the U.S. child welfare system and in state child welfare laws. However, the United States has not formally extended this standard to children in the immigration system. The lack of a binding best interests of the child principle in U.S. immigration law is harmful to children across all areas of the law. This chapter focuses on two of those areas: (1) the forms of immigration relief available to children and (2) the procedures in place for children in the U.S. immigration system. Both fall short of international standards and moral obligations to treat every child as our own.

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The Evolving Refugee Definition: How Shifting Elements of Eligibility Affect the Nature and Focus of Expert Testimony in Asylum Proceedings

2015-01-01

African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights examines the emerging trend of requests for expert opinions in asylum hearings or refugee status determinations. This is the first book to explore the role of court-based expertise in relation to African asylum cases and the first to establish a rigorous analytical framework for interpreting the effects of this new reliance on expert testimony. Over the past two decades, courts in Western countries and beyond have begun demanding expert reports tailored to the experience of the individual claimant. As courts increasingly draw upon such testimony in their deliberations, expertise in matters of asylum and refugee status is emerging as an academic area with its own standards, protocols, and guidelines. This deeply thoughtful book explores these developments and their effects on both asylum seekers and the experts whose influence may determine their fate.

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A Tale of Two Women: The Claims for Asylum of Fauziya Kassinda, Who Fled FGC, and Rody Alvarado, a Survivor of Partner (Domestic) Abuse

2014-11-19

n 1996, in a widely celebrated precedent decision, the Board of Immigration Appeals (Board or BIA), granted asylum to Fauziya Kassindja, a young woman from Togo who fled to the U.S. to escape the imminent prospect of female genital cutting (FGC). The decision, Matter of Kasinga, was notable for being the first published decision to recognize that an asylum claim could be based on gender-related persecution; it was also notable in applying and interpreting the controversial “social group” ground of the Refugee Convention. Later that same year, Rody Alvarado, a Guatemalan woman, sought asylum in the United States after suffering more than a decade of brutal and unrelenting violence at the hands of her husband. Applying the precedent in Kasinga, an immigration judge granted Rody Alvarado asylum, reasoning that although the form of persecution was different, the rationale was the same – namely that women harmed because of their gender could establish a claim on the basis of the “social group ground” and could meet the refugee definition. The U.S. government appealed the grant of asylum, arguing it was improper, and three years later – in 1999 – the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed the grant of asylum to Rody Alvarado. It would be another ten years until her case was finally resolved, and she was granted asylum. This paper examines the very different treatment of claims based on FGC, and those based on domestic violence in the United States. It describes the legal terrain and implications underlying both decisions, but also goes beyond the legal analysis to examine how these cases have been misunderstood, and frequently pulled into the orbit of the long-standing debate between universality of human rights and cultural relativism.

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Personal Violence, Public Matter: Evolving Standards in Gender-Based Asylum Law

2014-09-01

In August 2014, the US Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the highest immigration tribunal in the country, conceded that women fleeing domestic violence could meet the refugee definition and qualify for protection. The case in question, Matter of A-R-C-G-et al., involved Aminta Cifuentes, a Guatemalan woman who had suffered egregious brutalization over a 10-year period at the hands of her spouse. Her husband beat and kicked her, including incidents where he broke her nose and punched her in the stomach when she was eight months pregnant with such force that the baby was born prematurely and with bruises. Ms. Cifuentes told her husband she would call the police, but he said it would be pointless since "even the police and the judges beat their wives." Unfortunately, her husband's claim bore true; she called the police on at least three occasions and they dismissed her complaints as marital problems and told her to go home to her husband.

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Crimes Without Punishment: An Update on Violence Against Women and Impunity in Guatemala

2013-01-01

Building on previous studies, this article provides a brief overview of the prevalence and patterns of violence against women in Guatemala, a country with one of the highest rates of femicide, or gender-motivated killings of women, in the world. It looks at some of the government’s nascent efforts to implement laws and policies aimed at preventing and punishing femicide and other gender-based violence, examines statistics that show these efforts have not effectively reduced levels of violence or impunity, and analyzes the principal barriers to effective implementation of the laws. In the end, the article recommends that - beyond the creation of additional specialized courts, continued trainings of justice system officials, and improved investigatory procedures, efforts the Guatemalan government has begun - the Guatemalan government should institute a monitoring program to evaluate the performance of public officials in carrying out their obligations to apply the laws on gender violence. Additionally, the government should create a system to impose disciplinary actions, including ultimate dismissal of those who fail to apply the laws effectively and without gender bias because, ultimately, without a way to evaluate and impose serious sanctions upon public officials tasked with applying the law, there will never be meaningful change.

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A Short History of Gender Asylum in the United States: Resistance and Ambivalence May Very Slowly be Inching Towards Recognition of Women’s Claims

2010-01-01

This article provides an overview and analysis of protection for gender-related claims to refugee status, with a focus on the United States. It defines the term “gender-related” and explains the historical interpretive barriers to such claims. The article examines the earliest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pronouncements on the issue – beginning with Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme Conclusion No. 39 in 1985, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ first Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women in 1991, and continues through its Social Group and Gender Guidelines, issued in 2002. Within this context (and the context of other developments – such as the 1993 issuance of Canadian Guidelines), the article discusses developments in the United States, beginning with the release of “Gender Considerations” in 1995. It reviews the subsequent development of the United States jurisprudence, from Matter of Kasinga in 1996, to the recent resolution of Matter of R-A- (the case of Rody Alvarado) in 2009. It explains the current position of the Obama Administration, as set forth in a brief in the case of L.R. Through the discussion of this jurisprudence, the article highlights the ambivalence among United States adjudicators, and examines the advances and setbacks in the recognition of gender-related claims to protection. It concludes that the United States appears to be adopting a position more consistent with international guidance, but that until there is binding precedent, adjudicators remain free to retreat from the small advances that have been made.

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The Role of Mental Health Professionals in Political Asylum Processing

2010-12-01

Applying for asylum in the United States can be a strenuous process for both applicants and immigration attorneys. Mental health professionals with expertise in asylum law and refugee trauma can make important contributions to such cases. Not only can mental health professionals provide diagnostic information that may support applicants' claims, but they can evaluate how culture and mental health symptoms relate to perceived deficits in credibility or delays in asylum application. They can define mental health treatment needs and estimate the possible effects of repatriation on mental health. Mental health professionals can also provide supportive functions for clients as they prepare for testimony. Finally, in a consultative role, mental health experts can help immigration attorneys to improve their ability to elicit trauma narratives from asylum applicants safely and efficiently and to enhance their resilience in response to vicarious trauma and burnout symptoms arising from work with asylum seekers.

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Crimes Without Punishment: Violence Against Women in Guatemala

2010-01-01

When Rody Alvarado's husband, a former soldier in the Guatemalan military, repeatedly battered and brutalized her, he rarely failed to mention that even if he killed her, no one would care. Unfortunately for Rody, and for the many thousands of Guatemalan women who are the victims of violence, her husband's words accurately describe the situation in that country. In Guatemala, impunity for the battering and killing of women is at such levels that perpetrators rightly feel confident that there is no price to pay for their unrestrained violence. Each year the number of women murdered rises precipitously, and there is general consensus that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible is a significant factor in the escalating numbers of killings in Guatemala.

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The Implementation of the One-Year Bar to Asylum

2008-01-01

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). This provision of this law relating to the one-year bar was codified in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) § 208(a)(2)(B); 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2)(B). IIRIRA contains a provision commonly known as "the one-year bar" to asylum. This provision requires any individual seeking asylum to apply within one year of her arrival in the United States...

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Conscientious Objection as a Basis for Refugee Status: Protection for the Fundamental Right of Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

2007-01-01

It is beyond dispute that sovereign nations have the right to raise and maintain armies. This right may come in conflict with the right to conscientious objection, which has increasingly been recognized as a legitimate exercise of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Individuals who face mandatory military service in contravention of their deep moral convictions, may flee their home countries, and seek refugee status abroad as a solution. Their recognition as refugees depends on a broad constellation of factors, including the particular basis for their refusal to serve, the nature of the military conflict itself, and the degree to which the state in which they seek asylum follows the guidance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the issue of draft evasion and desertion as a basis for protection. This article will examine the trends regarding the protection of the individual whose claim to refugee status is premised upon a conscientious objection to military service. It will begin by examining the internationally recognized right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and discuss its relationship to conscientious objection. It will then examine the position and underlying rationale of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the issue. It will look at the trends in a number of common law countries, and evaluate the degree to which UNHCR guidance and other relevant human rights norms are respected. It will conclude by recommending a more robust protection of individuals of conscience who do not want to participate in the military.

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Protecting Victims of Gendered Persecution: Fear of Floodgates or Call to (Principled) Action?

2007-01-01

One of the most controversial issues in the U.S., as in a number of other refugee-receiving countries, is whether women who suffer gendered forms of violence (e.g. domestic violence, female genital cutting, trafficking for sexual exploitation, honor killings) qualify for protection as refugees. This controversy was exemplified in the U.S. by the more than decade-long legal claim for asylum of Rodi Alvarado, a Guatemalan woman who fled ten years of brutal domestic violence, in a situation where neither the police nor the courts would take any action to protect her. Although her claim has been considered by the highest immigration tribunal, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), and two successive attorney generals - Janet Reno and John Ashcroft - it has yet to be resolved.

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La Convencíon de 1951 sobre el Estatuto de la Persona Refugiada y la protección de las mujeres frente a las violaciones de sus derechos fundamentales,

2005-01-01

Este artículo es un análisis comparativo de la jurisprudencia y política sobre casos de asilo basado en persecución relacionada con el género. En los Estados Unidos todavía no se ha resuelto la cuestión de asilo por víctimas de persecución por razones de género. El artículo proporciona una historia de la experiencia en los Estados Unidos, y la discute en comparación a los desarrollos en la Unión Europea. Al fin, el artículo propone algunas recomendaciones dirigidas a España.

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Revisiting Social Group and Nexus in Gender Asylum Claims: A Unifying Rationale for Evolving Jurisprudence

2003-01-01

The meaning of the term "particular social group" and the determination of what is commonly referred to as "nexus" - the shorthand term used in the refugee adjudication context to describe the required causal connection between persecution and a Convention reason - may be among the most thorny interpretative issues in refugee law. As the law relevant to the protection of women asylum seekers evolves, it becomes increasingly apparent that the parameters of protection depend to no small degree upon State interpretation and the application of these two key concepts.

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Claims for Protection Based on Religion or Belief: Analysis and Proposed Conclusions

2002-12-01

The recognition of freedom of religion or belief as a fundamental human right is well established in numerous international and regional instruments. Religion or belief has also been the basis upon which human beings have been singled out for persecution. The twentieth century bore witness to the Nazi genocide against Jews, in which millions perished and those seeking protection were often turned back. It was this great tragedy, and the failure of the international community to protect World War II refugees which gave rise to the contemporary refugee protection regime. The Jewish victims of the Holocaust were clearly contemplated by the drafters of the Refugee Convention when they included religion as one of the five grounds for protection in the Convention.

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Steps Forward and Steps Back: Uneven Progress in the Law of Social Group and Gender-Based Claims in the United States

2001-01-01

The past months have been seen significant developments in gender asylum law in the United States, including the issuance of proposed asylum regulations that specifically address gender claims and the vacating of matter of R-A-, the landmark negative decision. The US developments should be considered in the context of recent progressive development of asylum law relating to gender in a number of other countries - including guidelines from the United Kingdom and a decision from the Refugee Status Appeals Authority in New Zealand granting asylum to a women from Iran whose claim was based on domestic violence and State sanctioned discrimination. As will be explained below, events in the United States are positive, but when viewed in light of advances elsewhere, may be seen as continuing to reflect a high level of resistance to the progressive development of the law.

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The Expedited Removal Study: Evaluation of the General Accounting Offices Second Report on Expedited Removal

With Lauren Gibson, Stephen Night & J. Edward Taylor.

The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the First Three Years of Implementation of Expedited Removal

With Lauren Gibson, Stephen Knight, & J. Edward Taylor. Reprinted in Notre Dame J.L. Ethics and Pub. Pol'y 1 (Special Issue 2001).

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Matter of R-A-: An Analysis of the Decision and Its Implications

1999-08-09

In June 1996, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued its landmark decision in Matter of Kasinga, Int. Dec. 3278 (BIA 1996), which was hailed as a positive milestone in the developing jurisprudence of gender-based asylum claims. Is Kasinga, the BIA ruled that the ritual practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) continues persecution, and that on the facts of the case, it was imposed on account of membership of a particular social group, was was defined, in part, by gender.

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The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the Second Year of Implementation of Expedited Removal

1999-01-01

With Lauren Gibson & J. Edward Taylor.

Ruminations on In Re Kasinga: The Decision' s Legacy

1998-01-01

Fauziya Kassindja's quest for refugee protection became one of the most highly publicized political asylum cases since the passage of the 1980 Refugee Act. The story of the young Togolese woman's flight from her home country to escape the dual fates of female genital mutilation (FGM) and life in a forced polygamous marriage ended up on the front pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and was covered by most of the major television networks. Ms. Kassindja herself was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline, Barbara Bradley of National Public Radio, and Judy Woodruff on CNN International...

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The Expedited Removal Study: Report on the First Year of Implementation of Expedited Removal

1998-01-01

with J. Edward Taylor & Nipa Rahim.

In Re Kasinga: A Big Step Forward for Gender-Based Asylum Claims,

Commentary on In Re Kasinga.

Women Refugees: Does the United States Provide Adequate Protection?

1996-01-01

The issue of women's rights as human rights, long neglected by the international human rights community, has been brought into the foreground by a series of world events. The tragic and highly publicized use of rape and forcible impregnation by the Bosnian Serbs as a war strategy in former Yugoslavia dramatically focussed world attention on the violations of women's human rights...

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Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Refugee Protections from Human Rights Norms

1994-01-01

On January 22, 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court decided INS v. Zacarias. The decision was one of only three cases in which the high court has directly interpreted and applied the substantive provisions of the 1980 Refugee Act...

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No Justice, No Peace: Accountability for Rape and Gender-Based Violence in the Former Yugoslavia

1994-01-01

The Women in the Law Project of the International Human Rights Law Group (Law Group) sponsored a delegation to the former Yugoslavia from February 14 to 22, 1993. The delegation, which was also endorsed by the Bar Association of San Francisco, had two principal objectives...

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Chiapas: The Rebellion of the Excluded

1994-01-01

Co-author.

Beating a hasty retreat

1993-01-01

This year marks the thirteenth anniversary of the Refugee Act, passed by the United States Congress in 1980. During these thirteen years—twelve spanned the successive administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush—refugees and their advocates have struggled to hold the United States to the promise it made to asylum seekers in passing the act. The early to mid‐1980s were times of disappointment; but by the end of the 1980s there were encouraging signs that the United States could live up to its self‐image as a nation that welcomes and protects people fleeing persecution. Unfortunately, recent developments have caused us to question this optimism; consistent with die spreading global antirefugee sentiment, a U.S. backlash against refugees is in the making. This backlash has produced cutbacks in protections for asylum seekers and threatens to severely undermine the U.S. protection system. To understand these developments, we must examine the evolution of U.S. refugee policy over the last thirteen years. We'll analyze some of the forces underlying the current attack on refugee rights and argue against a U.S. response that retreats from its oft‐stated commitment to human rights and humanitarian concerns.

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Swords into Ploughshares: Why the United States Should Provide Refuge to Young Men Who Refuse to Bear Arms for Reasons of Conscience

1989-01-01

Congress enacted the 1980 Refugee Act to bring the United States into compliance with the 1967 United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and with the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which is incorporated by reference into the protocol. The Refugee Act adopted the definition...

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