Article: Abuse asylum

Abuse victim's asylum claim deserves justice

By Carmen Valenzuela
Miami Herald - Opinion Section

Carmen_A_Valenzuela@hotmail.com

Attorney General John Ashcroft has referred Rodi Alvarado's asylum case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Alvarado, a Guatemalan woman like me, suffered years of terrifying abuse at the hands of her husband, including repeated rape, severe beatings, threats, humiliation and violent attacks calculated to force her miscarriage.

Alvarado sought the protection of her government, but in every instance she was turned away. Eventually, in 1995, after more than 10 years of abuse, she fled Guatemala for the United States, seeking the safety she could not find at home. She had to leave behind her 7-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son and has been separated from them since.

Alvarado's husband, Francisco Osorio, is a former soldier in the Guatemalan military, which was renowned for its brutality at that time. He repeatedly expressed that he had the right to treat his wife as he did because of her gender and their relationship. A judge told Alvarado that he would not ''interfere in domestic matters or disputes.'' The police told her that they would not provide her any assistance because she should ``take care of it at home.''

I can well believe that Alvarado found no solace in the government. In 1990, I was kidnapped, detained and tortured by the Guatemalan Army's intelligence service, which wanted information about my activities and contacts with the government opposition.

For eight days, my hands were cuffed and my head was covered with a hood. I was almost suffocated to make me talk. A towel was stuffed in my mouth so my screams would not be heard. My thighs were beaten until they looked like eggplants. I still have the scars -- physical and emotional -- from the beatings.

But I was ''fortunate'' in that a national and international campaign put pressure on the government to release me. I was able to leave Guatemala and eventually granted asylum in the United States.

Alvarado was granted asylum in 1996 by a U.S. immigration judge, based on Immigration and Naturalization Service guidelines recognizing gender-based persecution as a basis for asylum. However, the INS itself appealed the ruling, and the BIA denied her asylum in 1999. In 2000, then-Attorney General Janet Reno vacated the BIA's decision. Then in February 2004, the Department of Homeland Security (which absorbed the INS) submitted a detailed brief urging that Alvarado be granted asylum and promising quick action.

In sending Alvarado's asylum case back to the BIA, Ashcroft has once again robbed Alvarado of the opportunity for a normal life. He appears to have based his decision not on the facts of the case but on the fear that if gender-based claims for asylum are recognized, the floodgates will open and this country will be inundated with women fleeing domestic abuse.

This is not likely to happen. In 1993 Canada recognized violence against women as a basis for granting asylum. Since then, these types of claims have made up a tiny fraction of all asylum claims, never more than 2 percent of the total. This reflects the reality that most women lack the ability or resources or, in many cases, the desire to leave their homelands and come to Canada or the United States.

Despite the administration's consistent rhetoric that it stands for family values, in this case it passed up a critical opportunity to protect a woman who fled constant beatings to protect her life. I hope that the BIA will treat her justly and allow her to stay in the United States. Meanwhile, though, she will have to endure continued uncertainty and separation from her children, who cannot join her in the United States until her status is resolved.

Alvarado and others like her who have suffered brutal domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence should, like me, be given a chance to begin a new life. If she is forced to go back to Guatemala, she will pay a high price for having tried to save her life. Impunity is rampant in my country. That is well understood by the U.S. government and immigration authorities, which have turned a blind eye to torture and other human-rights violations by governments in my country and elsewhere in Latin America.

Carmen Valenzuela, a physician, lives in Montgomery Village, Md.

Posted by elcanche at February 1, 2005 03:05 PM