No refuge here

June 11, 2018

Donald Trump’s administration announced on Monday that it would order US immigration courts to stop granting asylum to victims of domestic abuse and gang violence who come to the country seeking safety.

[...]

[AG Jeff]Sessions signaled that the shift was imminent while addressing an annual training conference for the hundreds of US immigration judges on Monday. “Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems, even all serious problems, that people face every day all over the world,” he told the group.

[...]

“The asylum system is being abused to the detriment of the rule of law, sound public policy and public safety ... now we all know that many of those crossing our border illegally are leaving difficult and dangerous situations. And we understand all are due proper respect and the proper legal process. But we cannot abandon legal discipline and sound legal concepts,” Sessions said in the address.

[...]

Sessions wrote in a ruling on Monday that survivors of “private” crimes were not eligible for asylum.

“Generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum,” Sessions wrote in his 31-page decision.

  Guardian

January 13, 2019

Several days after Nelson Espinal slipped across the US southern border, he called his family back in Honduras from inside a US detention center.

“Tell Mom not to worry – I’m applying for asylum,” Espinal, 28, told his sister Patricia, who recounted the December phone call with tears streaming down her sun-scarred cheeks. “We must pray to God that they give it to me. I told them I can’t go back to Honduras because if I go back, they’re going to kill me.”

Espinal had made the 4,900km journey with several thousand others who joined the migrant caravan in October in the hopes of starting a new life.

Within weeks of reaching the US, however, he was deported back to his gang-infested neighborhood in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa – and the death threats that had prompted him to flee.

He resolved to try his luck again in the new year: head north, save his life and find a way to help his family and provide for his seven-year-old son.

But just over a week after his return, Nelson was shot dead on the street outside his home on 18 December 2018.

[...]

In cities across Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, gangs terrorize residents into submission and recruit young people by force or coercion, promising “work” for youths who have little prospect of finding formal employment – and threatening death for those who refuse.

[...]

Espinal lived with his parents, four sisters and son in a rough shack in the José Ángel Ulloa neighborhood.

[...]

According to Migdonia Ayestas, director of the Violence Observatory at the National Autonomous University in Honduras, more than 70 migrants have been murdered upon returning to the country in recent years.

[...]

Due to the government shutdown, the Guardian was unable to reach US Customs and Border Protection for comment.

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.