The proposed battered women measure is premised on the notion that they are a “particular social group,” which stretches that term of art beyond any legally useful meaning. See Gomez v. I.N.S., 947 F.2d 660, 663-64 (2d Cir. 1991) (”The phrase ‘particular social group’ has been defined to encompass ‘a collection of people closely affiliated with each other, who are actuated by some common impulse or interest.’ A particular social group is comprised of individuals who possess some fundamental characteristic in common which serves to distinguish them in the eyes of a persecutor—or in the eyes of the outside world in general.”) (internal citations omitted). “Possession of broadly-based characteristics such as youth and gender will not by itself endow individuals with membership in a particular group.” Id.

That is, if “particular social group” is broad enough to encompass battered women, then it is so broad as to effectively include any proposed group (e.g., battered or neglected children, the poor, the homeless). This would effectively turn asylum law into a sort of international welfare program. It’s not that these cases are not sympathetic, but the battered women proposal does not comport with asylum law’s historical raison d’etre. Asylum law exists to allow entry of those who are subject to governmental persecution or who are victimized by governmental sanction of persecution by private actors. Bartesaghi-Lay v. INS, 9 F.3d 819, 822 (10th Cir. 1993). This is a standard that battered women will, on a whole, seldom meet. Cf. Ali v. Reno, 237 F.3d 591, 598 (6th Cir. 2001) (denying such an asylum claim but noting that, under the Convention Aginst Torture, “a situation in which the authorities ignore or consent to severe domestic violence” might lend itself to an asylum claim).

The foregoing observation concerning the necessity of the complicity of the government highlights why battered women in particular really do not qualify for asylum on the basis of battering. As the Board of Immigration Appeals put it:

Traditionally, a refugee has been an individual in whose case the bonds of trust, loyalty, protection, and assistance existing between a citizen and his country have been broken and have been replaced by the relation of an oppressor to a victim. Thus, inherent in refugee status is the concept that an individual requires international protection because his country of origin or of habitual residence is no longer safe for him. We consider this concept to be expressed, in part, by the requirement in the [INA] and the [United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees] that a refugee must be unable or unwilling to return to a particular “country.” We construe this requirement to mean that an alien seeking to meet the definition of a refugee must do more than show a well-founded fear of persecution in a particular place or abode within a country—he must show that the threat of persecution exists for him country-wide.

Mazariegos v. Office of U.S. Attorney General, 241 F.3d 1320, 1325 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting B.I.A.) (emphasis added).

The persecution faced by battered women can in no meaningful sense be portrayed as country-wide. The persecution at issue is the result of a single individual: the victim’s spouse. Domestic violence is an issue that can and should be addressed internally by the country of origin not by immigration policy. If one embraces your position, Ampersand, I can see little reason why a substantial portion of the world’s female population would not be eligible for asylum. Given our own country’s manifest inability to fully deal with our own internal domestic violence problems, it might be inadvisable to attempt to solve the remainder of the world’s similar difficulties.

Thanks!