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Abuses against immigrant women in the United States

Silvia has five children, from which 4 are U.S. citizen. Silvias youngest daughter has cerebral
Palsy, and she works every day very hard so she can provide her children anything they need so
they can be happy and feel safe. She is a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual violence.
All started when she lived in Guatemala at the age of 16, where she was abused by a family
friend. For her misfortune, when she moved to the United States, the abused continued but now
by her new boyfriend. The abuse did not stop until she gave birth of her 1st child, running away
one night from the house and going to the police. Sadly, she did not know of the existence of the
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), so when she and her family encountered Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, she faced the risk of being deported back to Guatemala, leaving her
children and life that she already built with her family in the United States.
This is just one of the thousands of stories of former abused immigrant women in the United
States.
What VAWA does is that it gives a U nonimmigrant Status
(U Visa) to victims that have suffered physical or mental
abuse and that are helpful to government officials in the
prosecution of criminal activity. The crimes suffered by
U-visa applicants and recipients are predominantly
domestic violence, child and elder abuse, at 46%; rape,
human trafficking and sexual assault, at 29%; felonious
assault, murder and torture, at 11%; and kidnapping and
false imprisonment, at 8% (CNN 2012). The VAWA has
helped prosecutors and police to take violent criminals for
nearly 20 years.
Battered immigrant women might face language barriers,
since some of them either do not speak English or do not
feel comfortable speaking it, making it hard to find a
person or contact an organization that can help them.
It is also true that mental and physical abuses have the
same impact on foreign-born and U.S. citizen women. The
differences come when they try to stand up against these
abuses. Unfortunately, immigrant women have to face
more and unique challenges in contrast with U.S. citizen.
The abused immigrant women biggest fear is to be
deported. Making them an easier target of abuses since
their abusers can threat them with their immigration status.
Even some of them have to stay at jobs where they are
abused by partners or bosses just because they cant work
anywhere else. The big problem comes when they have
children that are U.S. citizen, since they can lose them

because of their deportation. There are several reforms that address this problem. The
President's executive actions will give parents of American citizens or legal resident children
who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years relief from deportation if they register with
the government, undergo background checks, and pay taxes. It will also allow immigration
enforcement officials to focus resources on deporting
Statistics of abused immigrant women
felons, not families. (OFA Barack Obama 2015)
in the United States
I think that one way that this problem of silent victims can

be solved by passing the immigration

reform. This reform would promote
the family unity and make stronger
the protection for immigrant workers.
"Scripture tells us that we shall not
oppress a stranger, for we know the
heart of a stranger -- we were
strangers once, too. My fellow
Americans, we are and always will be
nation of immigrants. We were
strangers once, too." (Barack Obama
2014).

By passing this law, not only the abused immigrant women would come out of the shadow and
stand up against their abusers, but also it would
Children of Undocumented Immigrants Rally in Washington to End
prevent future crimes that could be caused by the
Deportations
same abuser, just as a homicide of the battered
victim. Although this sounds horrible, it has a considerable probability since as nearly as the 30%
of the victims of female homicide are killed by their former boyfriend or even husband.
In order to protect the human rights of all the people doing no wrong in this country, we have to
step up together and help them report the abuses, because if these abused women are afraid of the
police and government, then with whom should they seek help?

Reference Page
Somanader. T. (2014, November). The White House: The President Announces New Steps of
Immigration. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/11/20/we-werestrangers-once-too-president-announces-new-steps-immigratio

Orloff, L. (2013, December). CNN: Dont gut Violence Against Women Act. Retrieved from
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/orloff-violence-against-women-act/

Organization for Action. (2015, July). Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Congress must act
comprehensively on immigration reform. Retrieved from
https://www.barackobama.com/immigration-reform/

YWCA. (2013). Violence Against Women Act. Retrieved from

(http://www.ywca.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?
c=duLQK8OVLmK6E&b=8084089&ct=12195661&notoc=1

Dean, K. (2016, April). Why We Cant Allow Forced Separations of Immigrant Children from
Their Parents. Retrieved from http://coyotelegal.com/2016/04/06/why-we-cant-allowforced-separations-of-immigrant-children-from-their-parents/