Legislation would remove protections against domestic violence & sex crimes for immigrant women

This Action Alert is from the National Council of La Raza.

Congress has a long-standing history of reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a law that protects victims of abuse.  Congress is debating the reauthorization of VAWA once again; it has already been passed by the Senate.  The bill that has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representatives Eric Cantor (R–VA) and Sandy Adams (R–FL) would roll back years of protections and bipartisan commitment to protect vulnerable immigrant victims of domestic violence, stalking, sex crimes, and human trafficking.

Are immigrants less worthy of protection from some of the most atrocious acts human beings can commit?

The Cantor-Adams bill (H.R. 4970) would effectively prevent immigrant victims from applying for protection from their abusers.  It radically changes the current application process for immigrant women and puts steep new hurdles to eligibility in the path of immigrant survivors seeking protection under VAWA.

Since its inception, VAWA has protected immigrant victims of domestic violence by permitting them to obtain legal status on their own when their U.S. citizen and lawful permanent resident spouses, as part of the abuse, refused to petition for them.  H.R. 4970 would roll back these protections by removing critical confidentiality provisions and requiring notification of the abuser as part of the VAWA self-petition process.

In what world would victims come forward if they knew their abusers would be notified?  



As if this weren’t bad enough, H.R. 4970 also leaves out provisions to increase the safety of LGBT victims that were included in the VAWA reauthorization bill that recently passed in the Senate with bipartisan support.

Call your representative today and ask him/her to oppose H.R. 4970 because it doesn’t include protections for all victims and it rolls back protections for victims of domestic violence.