Trump administration turns its back on the most vulnerable

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(CNN)At a time when a group of migrants remain in limbo seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border, the Trump administration is waging war on some of the most vulnerable people in the world: women who are victims of severe violence at the hands of their intimate partners.

These women -- from near and far -- come to the United States seeking safety through our asylum program. But in April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions employed a rarely used privilege to reopen a case in which a judge had already granted asylum to a victim of domestic violence.

In doing so, he explicitly seeks to challenge the notion that women may seek asylum in the US on the basis having proved that they had experienced severe domestic violence or are at risk of femicide, or death from intimate partner violence.

In the United States, asylum is granted to applicants who can prove persecution (either by the government, or by individuals the government cannot or declines to control) on the basis of: their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a "particular social group." To be a member of a "particular social group" is to be a person possessing some immutable characteristic, like being a woman. The asylum applicant must prove that this characteristic is responsible for her persecution.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/01/opinions/dhs-and-sessions-wrong-on-asylum-for-domestic-violence-opinion/index.html