Ruling opens the door for Guatemalan asylum claim

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Ruling opens the door for Guatemalan asylum claim
Published: 7/13/2010 4:02 AM
Last Modified: 7/13/2010 4:02 AM
By PAUL ELIAS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court ruling Monday created the possibility that Guatemalan women could qualify for political asylum in the U.S. because of the high female murder rate in the Central American country.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a strongly worded ruling reversing the deportation orders of two immigration courts that such a claim applies too broadly. The San Francisco-based court ordered the immigration judges, who work in the U.S. Department of Justice, to reconsider granting asylum to Lesly Yajayra Perdomo, an illegal immigrant in her mid-30s who settled in Reno, Nev.

Most important, the court ordered the Board of Immigration to determine whether all Guatemalan women can qualify — a decision that could open the door to similar claims from other countries such as El Salvador, Honduras and others with history of widespread gender abuse.

More than 3,800 Guatemalan women have been murdered since 2000 and fewer than 2 percent of the crimes have been solved, according to the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at the University of California, San Francisco's law school.

Read more: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13&articleid=20100713_13_A5_BALEIS594484