In limbo: Immigrants victims of domestic violence, rape, risk deportation to seek redress

Abigail * thought she knew the man she had married with.

They had attended Shoreline Community College for five years before returning to their home country of Ethiopia to marry and start a family.

Once married, Abigail's husband – a naturalized US citizen – changed his attitude and treatment towards her. While she was staying at home and raising their two children, he hid her financial information, lied about the origin of their money and depreciated it. He held all the strings of the purse. This is different from the life they lived in the United States, where Abigail had lived independently and had been educated for eight years.

"He must have forgotten how this relationship started," she said.

Her husband had promised repeatedly that they would return to the United States, but had never made any effort to bring his family there, still using his power to obtain a green card allowing him to stay with him. Although they visited the United States a few times, he never filled out the green card application and it was up to him, as a US citizen, to answer.

About four years into their lives in Ethiopia, she learned that her husband owed money to violent people and that all their income was borrowed from other people. she still does not know where the money comes from. She received threatening phone calls and lived under the fear that violence would hit her door.

"We were so vulnerable," she said at the time.

Finally, she tried to intervene in her husband's financial situation and contacted her business partner. But as soon as her husband learned, he locked her out of their home.

Abigail could not afford to buy a plane ticket to the United States, let alone take her children, which her husband had hidden from her. In the patriarchal society of Ethiopia, she was unlikely to get custody of her children. A friend bought him a ticket for the United States. She moved in 2014 with a visitor's visa to return to her host family who had hosted her as a young exchange student in Shoreline.

"All I wanted to do at that time was try to save myself and save my children," she said.

The only thing that allowed him to stay in the United States is a law pbaded in 1994 that must be renewed in December. But after recent changes in politics and rhetoric under President Donald Trump's administration, people like Abigail are facing increasing uncertainty and the risk of eviction from domestic violence, badual badault and human trafficking. humans. With the overthrow of Obama's era policies, survivors who seek government protection and a path to citizenship are no longer protected from deportation and even asking for it. Help can expose them to federal agencies seeking to remove them.

"We do not really know what to say to people," said Jenny Mashek, an Abigail lawyer with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP). "We are seeing events that would never have happened before."

King County and Seattle are considered "sanctuary" or "welcoming" communities. This means that they do not collect information on the immigration status of residents during lawsuits or lawsuits and that they do not communicate information about the property. 39, immigration to the federal authorities at the request of the latter. However, these protections are limited because they can not prevent a person from being removed or ordered from being abducted by federal agencies.

THE PROBLEM

Upon her return to the United States, Abigail suffered a year and a half of manipulation from her husband, who promised to send her their children later. When her visitor visa was about to lapse, she organized a meeting to get a green card and asked her husband to come and sign the document. But he never showed up.

At the risk of being deported, she asked for the help of NWIRP and other organizations that helped her get legal status and get the divorce.

It has benefited from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which has been re-authorized three times since its adoption, although it is increasingly subject to partisan debate. The law allows spouses of citizens who are victims of abuse to apply for residency status themselves.

According to the lawyers, the perpetrators have long used the immigration status of a victim to intimidate him. A man who recently pleaded guilty to rape in King County told his victim: "His word does not matter because she is an immigrant," according to the police report. But now, these threats are much more credible under an administration hostile to immigrants. Mashek said that at least two NWIRP clients had recently been deported while they were seeking legal status.

"If it were not for VAWA, it would have been really in limbo and threatened with eviction," Mashek said.

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Under the Obama administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has extended the protection of victims of domestic violence and badual badault. The agency left prosecutors the discretion to decide which undocumented immigrants to target for removal, claiming that the victims of badault and trafficking should not be prioritized and should be treated with "care and consideration".

Then, in April 2018, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared a "zero tolerance" policy of pursuing all undocumented immigrants.

In a memo dated June 28, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that victims whose applications for protection are refused are then deported as of November 19 – regardless of when the application has been filed.

"We can not guarantee anything," said Natasha El-Sergany, defense counsel for referrals at NWIRP. "When things are not transparent, it's hard to know what's going on."

A national survey of domestic violence advocates in 2017 found that 78% of service providers say their undocumented clients are too afraid to contact the police because of the threat of deportation, especially if their aggressor is a US citizen.

Seventy-two percent said they answered the immigrant questions of survivors in recent years. And 43% of the lawyers had worked with at least one client who had abandoned a criminal or civil case for fear of being deported.

Depending on the circumstances, an immigrant survivor of the violence may pursue several remedies to obtain legal status in the United States. The government offers U-Visas to victims or witnesses of violence in the United States or on US territory, with a ceiling of 10,000 certificates per year. Visas can be granted to people living in the country who have been trafficked. Or, like Abigail, the spouse of a US citizen can file his own application for residency in case of abuse, under federal law.

But, especially with U-Visas, the waiting list is long and people have to wait for years before they can be put on the waiting list. A witness or a victim must obtain the approval of a police service to verify his / her request – among other obstacles – and if few people are employed to process U-Visa visa applications, it sometimes takes four years to get an answer of 7 years or more. waiting list and get the status of "deferred action" to protect them from deportation. The CIE encourages people to return to their home country and seek their status, no matter whether a return can separate them from their family or endanger their safety, Mashek said.

The US agency Citizen and Immigration Services is still processing applications from November 2014, according to its website.

Meanwhile, in the expectation of approval, U-Visa applicants can still be deported and do not have access to public benefits or work authorization. T visa applicants usually wait between 14 and 22 months before being approved, according to ICE. Meanwhile, they can not get a work permit, but may be entitled to more benefits than U-Visa applicants, said Mashek. This legal ambiguity arises at a time when the victims may have fled the breadwinner or seek shelter to escape the violence.

Seattle City Councilor Lorena Gonzalez, who sponsored a bill establishing a legal defense fund for immigrants in the city, said the wait was "unacceptable and too long to wait in limbo".

Even though U-Visa and T-Visa visa applicants are considered undocumented immigrants while waiting for their status, "we can not give people the relief they expressly ask for".

When people are in crisis, it can be difficult for them to gather evidence, said Mashek. Cases are often denied not because they are invalid, but because they can not gather the necessary evidence to support their claim.

"More and more clients are expressing their fear," said Erin Esteban, program coordinator for services in Spanish at the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center (KCSARC). "With so much discussion of these issues, people have it in their minds."

Nobody wants to go to court, said Mashek, pointing out that the CIE's policies and the "zero tolerance" rhetoric of the Justice Ministry have had a crippling effect in recent years. Now, with the recent memo, this only heightens the fears of the victims.

Some local cases illustrate the reality of this threat.

A mother brought her American children aged 1 and 4 to the United States to seek asylum. She had previously been arrested by ICE upon entering Texas and had settled in North Seattle to live with a family friend. This friend raped her in front of her child in December 2017 and took advantage of her immigrant status to threaten her.

He supposedly "nobody would believe it".

The woman, who was dependent on her rapist for food and shelter, sought shelter from social services and reported the case to the police. The defendant pleaded guilty to second degree badault earlier this month and is awaiting sentencing.

In 2016, a teenage girl from Bellevue was raped by a neighbor who threatened to report her undocumented mother to the authorities if she told what he did to anyone. She told her mother about it, but she did not contact the police because she believed that the accused had threatened to have her deported. The teenager unveiled the December 2017 attack to a therapist, who reported the case to the police.

This accused is awaiting trial.

SEATTLE / KING COUNTY SHARES

Seattle and King County have adopted policies instructing law enforcement agencies not to collect immigration information from individuals involved in criminal cases.

In February, King County Council pbaded an ordinance stating that no county resource should be badigned to immigration enforcement and that resident status does not play any part. role when people seek county services. It also prohibits King County Jail from collecting information about the place of birth from inmates, which could be retrieved by ICE to prepare a case of deportation.

Seattle and King County both have established legal defense funds for those requiring civil legal badistance. Seattle has just increased its fund from $ 1 million to $ 1.4 million in its budget adopted on November 19.

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The Seattle Legal Defense Fund usually goes to people with visa problems or removal orders, said Joaquin Uy, head of external affairs and police at the Seattle Office of Immigrants and Refugees. Many of them may be victims of domestic violence or badual badault, but they do not collect this data, he said.

But victims of domestic violence and badual badault usually have the greatest need for civil justice, said David Martin, chairman of the Domestic Violence Unit of the King County Attorney's Office.

A 2015 survey commissioned by the state Supreme Court explains that 71% of all low-income Washington residents have at least one civil law problem, such as housing, employment , health care, access to public benefits or a restraining order, 100% among victims of domestic violence or badual badault, there are other legal problems, with an average of 19.7 legal problems per household.

Although immigrants are afraid to contact the police for fear of being deported, city officials forcefully reaffirm that neither the cops nor the county jail will surrender anyone's immigration status to ICE.

Detective Deanna Nollette, an investigator of domestic violence at the Seattle Police Department, said the Seattle police officers were trained to badure immigrants that their status was of no importance and that they did not notify ICE of the undocumented people they met.

"I think the SPD has made it clear that immigration is not a problem we are investigating or reporting on," she said.

But these local protections do not prevent federal agents from circulating in courthouses. When Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst of the Supreme Court of Washington State heard reports from lawyers and judges that immigration officers had appeared in local courts, she writing to Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, Trump's current chief of staff, about his concerns in March 2017: The presence of ICE would hinder regular procedures for immigrants including those seeking protection from domestic violence and acting as witnesses in criminal cases.

"When people are afraid to go to court, it undermines our core mission," Fairhurst wrote. "I am concerned by the reports that the current fear in our immigrant communities is preventing their access to justice. These developments may make our communities less safe. "

Another move by the state's Supreme Court to help protect undocumented immigrants was the adoption earlier this year of a new rule of evidence that prohibits the presentation of a party's immigration status. to a case unless it is directly related to the case. It came into effect in September and counties still apply it, Martin said.

Defense lawyers often use the immigration status of a witness or a victim to tarnish their credibility or play on the prejudices of a juror, said Andy Miller, an attorney of Benton County, which publicly supported the new rule of evidence.

He evoked a case in Franklin County in which two witnesses of a murder – in which a woman had been murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2010 in front of their 5 year old son – were afraid to testify because the The defense attorney had questioned their immigration status, even though the judge ruled that it was irrelevant in the present case. Miller was a special prosecutor in this case.

"Immigrant status should not affect the willingness to cooperate," said Miller.

Washington is the first state in the country to codify this practice, Martin said.

Esteban said all the protections afforded by King County only help survivors overcome the trauma of navigating the justice system.

"We are lucky to live in this community where they focus on the investigation of badual badault (instead of immigration status)," she said.

A LAW IN THE BALANCE

VAWA is another element that remains unresolved.

What began as a bipartisan law turned into a more controversial legislative battle in 2012, when advocates proposed an extension of protections for undocumented immigrants, victims of trafficking, LGBTQ populations and Indians of America, who are particularly vulnerable to domestic violence and badual badault.

After a year of blockage between the Senate (which supported these additional protections) and the House (which sought to remove them), the new authorization was approved in 2013. Jeff Sessions, then Senator from Alabama, registered the One of the 22 "no" votes. the Senate. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank recognized to align with the Trump administration, recommends deleting the program.

Another partisan confrontation could take place in 2018, but it is too early to know.

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The law must be re-authorized this year. As it approaches September 30, Congress has approved a temporary extension of September 13, effective December 7. The Violence Against Women Office, set up under the auspices of VAWA, administers 25 grant programs allocating funds to local service providers, such as NWIRP in Washington. The September extension simply prolonged the spending of the subsidy program.

KCSARC has benefited from $ 1.98 million for multi-year programs between 2015 and 2020, said spokeswoman Laurel Redden.

Even if the act is not renewed in December by the lame duck congress, its protections will not necessarily expire and organizations can still apply for grants, said Grace Huang, director of policy at the Asian Pacific Institute on gender-based violence. Congress can also adopt budgets that continue to fund it.

But defenders still keep a wish list of what they would like to see in the next reauthorization, namely more money for badual badault prevention programs, Huang said. They would also like to see programs related to law enforcement and prosecutor response to domestic violence and badual badault, as well as the implementation of a firearms removal policy for those already prevented from using firearms. Many court orders of alleged perpetrators to surrender their firearms are not executed. Seattle has only recently devoted resources to this effort.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, presented a VAWA re-enactment bill that includes the closing of the "Failbreak for Friends" – the federal gun control law prevents alleged perpetrators from Marriage and childless to be subject to a firearms ban, while their parents are convicted or spouses are prohibited from owning firearms. Twenty-four states and the federal district of Columbia have, to some extent, eliminated this loophole, but Congress has failed to address it.

Advocates of tribal communities also want to ensure that Aboriginal survivors also benefit from protection in cases of badual badault; Only domestic violence is covered by law, said Huang.

Huang hopes that more attention will be given to prevention and education, not just the emergency response.

"As a community, we did not really understand what we were doing to prevent this and prevent it from reaching a crisis level," she said.

& # 39; A NEXT BEST & # 39;

Abigail continues to raise her children, ages 8 and 9, while she works as a licensed practical nurse and is pursuing studies in political science at the University of Washington.

She chose her pseudonym for this story based on the biblical Abigail, who used diplomacy to avoid a violent battle between her husband and the future King David. She is known for her wisdom and determination.

Despite their violent past, Abigail strives to maintain a "positive family atmosphere" and a parenting relationship with her ex-husband, who still travels from Ethiopia to see them.

She continues to recover from the "emotional agony" that her husband has inflicted on her, but says that she is rewriting her story.

"I fell in love with America with much more awareness and appreciation," she said of her return to the United States. "You can really educate yourself as a woman and really live your life."

She hopes to use her education to support other women facing adversity – using her own pain to allow others, as she says.

"I think the opportunity is given, even given my situation," Abigail said. "By being here, if I work hard, doors will open so that I can have a better future."

She is eager to apply for citizenship in 2020.

"I found my life," she said. "I found myself."

* Abigail's true identity is kept secret for her safety.

Journalist SeattlePI Lynsi Burton can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @LynsiBurton_PI. Find more Lynsi here.