An investigative report from Pro Publica, “These Women Were Trying to Escape Domestic Abuse. ICE Detained Them Instead” details how changes to federal immigration policies are impacting the help seeking behaviors of immigrant survivors, including their willingness to engage with law enforcement when they are a victim of a crime.
In “Fear and Silence: 2025 Insights from Advocates for Immigrant Survivors” a survey commissioned by the Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence (API-GBV), ASISTA, Esperanza United, and the Tahirih Justice Center, one of the stark findings revealed that 76 percent of advocates reported that immigrant survivors have concerns about contacting the police to report domestic violence and sexual assault.
New policies and guidance implemented by the current presidential administration and adopted by Congress are making it harder for survivors to get the help they need. These include involving local law enforcement in federal immigration actions, arresting and detaining victims of crime who come forward, and carrying out enforcement actions at courthouses and other previously protected areas. These actions go against the purpose of laws Congress has passed over the past 30 years meant to protect immigrant survivors – laws that were passed with bipartisan support.
“This survey shows us the grave chilling effect that recent immigration policy changes are having on immigrant survivors of violence,” said Cristina Velez, the Legal & Policy Director at ASISTA. “This is the message they are receiving: either stay with your abuser or risk deportation.”
The survey also revealed that 50 percent of advocates have worked with immigrant survivors who decided to drop civil or criminal cases because they were fearful to continue with their cases. “One survivor we worked with,” said an advocate, “did not call the police when her abuser stalked and assaulted her because she was afraid that the police would find out her immigration status and deport her. She specifically feared that her abuser would disclose her immigration status to the police as retaliation if she called them for help.”
70.3 percent of advocates report that immigrant survivors have concerns about going to court for a matter related to their abuser. The survey findings also showed that 79.7 percent of respondents observed an increase in the number of immigration-related questions that their agencies were receiving from immigrant survivors since November 2024.
“Certainly more immigrant survivors are feeling like the violence and abuse they experience behind the closed door is somehow more tolerable than the violence and abuse they could experience if they tried to leave,” said Casey Carter Swegman, director of public policy at the Tahirih Justice Center.
You can read “These Women Were Trying to Escape Domestic Abuse. ICE Detained Them Instead” at the Pro Publica website. Pro Publica aims to expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.
