In The Matter of: Suyi Varquero-Cubias (April 5 2016) Board of Immigration Appeals. NIWAP, represented by Tahirih Justice Center and Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, participated filed this brief in a case of a battered immigrant from El Salvador who separated from her abusive boyfriend and her abuser continued to stalk, sexually assault, and threaten her for the next two years until she fled in fear of her life for the United States. The
Immigration Judge denied her asylum case based on the fact that she was not married to the abuser and that she had physically separated from her abuser. This amicus brief asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to clarify that divorce or a woman’s other attempts to separate are not dispositive of a woman’s
ability to leave the abusive relationship where she lacks the power to end the domestic relationship.
NIWAP provided social science research on separation violence and abusers power and control to
continue to perpetrate the post-separation coercive control, abuse and sexual violence supporting the victim’s
claim for gender based asylum.