In 2014, the 20th anniversary of the landmark Violence Against Women Act in the United States, immigration and domestic violence advocates celebrated a breakthrough decision by the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals to include domestic violence as a rationale for granting asylum. Two datasets, the 2008 and 2012 Collaborative Multiracial Survey, allow us to track public opinion regarding immigration and border security. In this paper I explore the ways in which shifting public opinion about immigration has limited the ability of women of color immigrants to access remedies when they are survivors of domestic violence, and the tactics activists have used to gain relief using other means (e.g. court-driven remedies rather than legislative remedies). I specifically use a Paradigm Intersectionality approach to consider the race-gender-class-national status aspects of this topic.
