U.S. to Deport Woman to Certain Torture at the Hands of Her Husband

Forty-four-year-old Irma Medrano fled El Salvador, where she lived a life of terror at the hands of an abusive husband, in 1995. Medrano was repeatedly beaten, strangled with a belt, and threatened with death. She was forced to watch as her husband submerged her children in corn, restrained them under piles of bricks, broke her daughter's nose, and ripped her nephew's earlobe. Earlier this year, word made it to her husband in El Salvador that Medrano might soon be deported. He is now on the hunt to find her. If Irma Medrano returns to El Salvador, she and her sister insist, she might never bee seen again.

Medrano reported her abuser to the Salvadoran police, who told her that there was nothing they could do to protect her because, after all, he was her husband. She was stuck with him. Medrano had no choice but to come to the United States where her husband could not track her down.

Though she testified early on to this extensive abuse, Medrano was not aware that she could apply for asylum until after an immigration judge ordered her to leave the U.S.; had she known, she would likely have qualified for protection as a member of a particular social group — in this case, a victim of domestic violence in El Salvador. Medrano's new attorneys have filed a motion with the Justice Department that would allow her to apply for asylum. The Justice Department has not yet ruled on the motion, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied her request to wait for the Justice Department's decision before deporting her.  As it now stands, without a swift decision or government intervention, Irma Medrano will be deported any day now to El Salvador where, as she told the Justice Department, she "will face certain torture or even death."

Domestic abuse and gender-based violence are all too common in Central America, largely because of the near-total impunity for perpetrators. The attorney for DHS argued against Medrano's claims, insisting that conditions for women have drastically improved in El Salvador in recent years. But Karen Musalo of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, an agency that has extensively researched societal and governmental response to domestic abuse in Central America, says that based on her recent research in El Salvador, "It is totally, verifiably false to say that conditions for women in El Salvador have improved."

Earlier this year, U.S. courts made two landmark decisions in favor of domestic abuse survivors. These decisions helped pave the way for protection for women like Irma Medrano, who have been imprisoned and tortured in their own homes and denied protection from their governments due to a fundamental lack of value placed on the life of a woman.

Medrano writes, "I believe that women deserve respect. We are mothers, and we fight for our children, and we are often left by men in order to care for our children by ourselves. I do not want to be forced to return to El Salvador, where I am afraid that I will be horribly abused because I am a woman. I refuse to endure this type of treatment any further." Sign the petition to tell Congressional representatives and DHS that you value Medrano's — and every woman's — life, and that you urge them to remove the deportation order and allow Irma Medrano to apply for protection under U.S. asylum law.