Overview

In this monograph, Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin conduct an in-depth study of the asylum proceedings for Latin American women seeking protection from gender-based violence in the United States (US). Through ethnographic observations of closed court asylum proceedings, analysis of redacted asylum decisions and interviews with asylum seekers and attorneys, the book reviews the experiences of forty-six Latin American women. Throughout the monograph, the authors show how the asylum system is ill-suited for women seeking protection from gender-based violence, as refugee law was created after the Second World War to provide protection to victims of state persecution. Yet victims of non-state actors, including gender-based and gang violence, as in this book, also seek protection. They must face a system designed ‘to sort out those deemed worthy of protection’ and ‘to repel large numbers of asylum seekers from the Global South’. Importantly, the authors highlight how an ostensibly gender-neutral system denies asylum seekers access to their rights and protection by failing to acknowledge gender-based violence. They compellingly argue for stronger regulations and guidelines on how victims of non-state actors may meet the criteria for asylum. This monograph contributes to the literature on gender and asylum law and policy by providing detailed insights into the gendered impacts of the immigration system.

Critical engagement and social policy lens

One of this monograph’s key contributions is the in-depth insights it provides into the asylum process. Usually, asylum applications and decisions are undisclosed, court hearings take place behind closed doors, and access to immigration detention facilities is highly restricted. Combining interviews with asylum seekers and practitioners, ethnographic observations of court hearings, and analysis of redacted asylum decisions, this monograph offers a detailed study of a closed court system and of the experiences of those who undergo the asylum process and those who work in it. In particular, it provides observations on the challenges women asylum seekers face in demonstrating that they meet the criteria for refugee status. The women whose stories are told in this book must prove that they have been persecuted or, if returned to their country of origin, risk being persecuted because of their membership in a particular social group or another category set by the 1951 Refugee Convention and the domestic asylum systems derived from it. While gender is not covered by the definition, the particular social group category has been interpreted to include gender-based claims. This evolution tends to be driven by case law and administrative guidelines issued to asylum officers, which are not binding and remain subject to judicial interpretation and to changes driven by different administrations, as observed in this book.

Another hurdle lies in demonstrating that gender-based violence amounts to persecution. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, persecution is understood to be performed by a state or state actor. For victims of gender-based violence, such as those who shared their stories in this monograph, this is challenging because their persecutors tend to be private actors, whether partners, family members or gangs. They must, therefore, demonstrate that they were unable to avail protection from their state. The stories in this monograph show how the interpretations of this criterion widely vary. Having sought protection from local police is often an essential element of a successful asylum case. The authors highlight how misconceptions about Latin American countries shape asylum decisions in the US, particularly with regard to policies against gender-based violence in Mexico and Central America. For instance, they report a case where a judge refused asylum to a woman on the basis that the government of her country of origin had taken measures to address gender-based violence, without taking into account that policy implementation is lacking and violence against women is endemic.

Overall, this monograph offers a critical understanding of the inequalities between applicants in the asylum process. The authors detail how research participants had limited knowledge of the asylum process upon arriving in the US. For instance, a woman they interviewed did not know she could seek asylum until she met with US immigration authorities. The authors also highlight the role of attorneys in lengthy and complex processes and demonstrate that having the financial means to pay for legal advice becomes crucial to obtaining asylum.

Lastly, this monograph contains thought-provoking observations on the responsibility of Global North states for the circumstances pushing people from the Global South to seek asylum, especially for gang and gender-based violence across Latin America. However, on these points, their analysis falls short of engaging with critical scholarship on global inequalities regarding citizenship and migration to draw further on what this means for Global North countries. For instance, E. Tendayi Achiume’s discussion on migration from the Global South to the Global North as decolonisation and a form of ‘corrective, distributive justice’ could have furthered their analysis. Nonetheless, this monograph calls for further research on the inequalities between Global North and Global South citizens in the global migration regime and for Global North countries’ responsibility for the violence resulting from neocolonial policies in Latin America.