'Give Me Your Gays, Your Lesbians, and Your Victims of Gender Violence, Yearning to Breathe Free of Sexual Persecution...': The New Grounds for Grants of Asylum

32 Nova Law Review 357 (2008)

34 Pages Posted: 23 Oct 2014

See all articles by Leonard Birdsong

Leonard Birdsong

Barry University - Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

Our earliest immigration laws excluded lesbians and gays. Since 1996, the expansion of grants of political asylum based on sexual orientation and gender-based violence is a welcomed expansion of basic and traditional immigration laws because grants of asylum-based immigration seek to uphold individual human dignity in the face of persecution in one's country of origin.

Our basic immigration system is based on a complicated set of quantitative and qualitative laws limiting legal immigration to our country. Harassment and abuse of LGBT persons, as well as persecution of women who are victims of gender violence, have now become increasingly accepted as grounds for legal asylum in the United States.

This article is written to analyze the myriad of problems in obtaining justice in our asylum system with respect to the grants of asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and gender violence. It also exposes the need for better-trained and more sensitive immigration judges, the need for more consistency in defining and interpreting our asylum laws, and the need for the Department of Homeland Security to formulate policies that will guarantee uniformly just results for those escaping persecution. The article also briefly explains the history of how asylum became a part United States law, provides up-to-date statistical information concerning grants of asylum, discusses the difficulty of adjudicating asylum cases in a uniform way because of the lack of certain statutory definitions, and explored splits in the Circuit Courts in interpreting asylum law. The author concludes by suggesting that the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association work together to codify asylum law regulations that can be uniformly interpreted by immigration judges, practitioners, and law teachers.

Keywords: Immigration law, asylum, gender violence, international law, persecution

JEL Classification: K33, K10, K40

Suggested Citation

Birdsong, Leonard, 'Give Me Your Gays, Your Lesbians, and Your Victims of Gender Violence, Yearning to Breathe Free of Sexual Persecution...': The New Grounds for Grants of Asylum (2008). 32 Nova Law Review 357 (2008), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2513381

Leonard Birdsong (Contact Author)

Barry University - Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law ( email )

6441 East Colonial Drive
Orlando, FL 32807
United States

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