Domestic violence does not spare immigrants either, and it deeply affects communities of Hungarian Americans as well. Yet survivors of abuse often cannot seek help because their uncertain or unresolved legal status leaves them afraid to come forward. For many women, silence becomes the only option.
The lives of immigrants are burdened in many ways, with far greater vulnerability and heightened tensions. Women and children are especially exposed. Even within the Hungarian American community, there are numerous instances of troubled marriages or cohabitations, and there have been very severe cases, some even ending in death.
This was the focus of a press briefing organized by American Community Media, featuring speakers Carmen McDonald, Executive Director of the Survivor Justice Center; Patima Komolamit, Executive Director of the Center for the Pacific Asian Family; and Morgan Weibel, Director of Client Advocacy and Legal Services at the Tahirih Justice Center.
One striking example was shared: a domestic violence survivor applied for an emergency restraining order. Instead of receiving protection from her abuser, a county sheriff appeared at her door and threatened to report her to immigration authorities.
That is the new reality for many immigrant survivors of domestic violence in Trump’s America, and she is not alone. Across the nation, immigrant survivors are finding that seeking justice can mean risking deportation, leading many to choose abuse over safety.
Growing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are triggering an overwhelming wave of fear in immigrant neighborhoods, silencing many survivors and creating obstacles to protection.
Stricter interview-based vetting procedures for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) visas, which allow survivors to petition for immigration status separate from an abusive partner, are only creating additional hurdles. Applicants for U visas, given to victims of violent crime, also now have stricter application procedures.
Domestic violence organizations are witnessing the personal aftermath of these actions firsthand. The Survival Justice Center (SJC), based in Los Angeles County, provides free legal services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. About 70% of their clients are immigrants, and the center has felt a tangible sense of fear among all of them.
Carmen McDonald, Executive Director at SJC, said complaints of discrimination and hate dropped in LA County after ICE raids began, not because incidents were down, but because people were afraid to report them. Amid intensified immigrant enforcement, often targeting those with no criminal charges ever filed, survivors face more than just seeing their abusers in court. Many now fear that ICE will be waiting at the courthouse doors.
“Folks are still afraid, specifically survivors, when they see officers in their neighborhoods in plain clothes or with masks, or bounty hunters who have been sent to pick up their friends and neighbors without warning. They wonder, well, if I go to court to try to protect myself from abuse, ‘Will I be next? Will I be picked up?’” McDonald said at a briefing held by American Community Media on Sept. 12.
SJC has moved many of their meetings online to restore a sense of safety in clients, but survivors are still seen avoiding services or even remaining silent about entirely other crimes. Data on asylum decisions in immigration courts show a strikingly high denial rate, contributing to the culture of fear among survivors.
“We’ve lost complete contact with one of our clients. She asked us to cancel her restraining order and to close her case with our office, and we cannot locate her,” McDonald said. “…We’ve had a client who was in a car accident that didn’t want the police to come. Another person told us they were pulled over and wanted to say in that moment to the police, ‘My abuser has sexually assaulted me and has weapons at home’ but was afraid to continue any interaction with the police officer.”
Morgan Weibel, director of client advocacy and legal services at the national nonprofit Tahirih Justice Center (TJC), said that this fear is fully grounded in reality. Domestic violence organizations across the country are reporting cases of survivors being targeted merely because they filed for protection.
“Survivors are less likely to trust the system because of the government’s policies that entangle local law enforcement with federal immigration actions,” Weibel said. “The climate of fear for survivors who are witnessing arrests at courthouses and other previously protected areas is real.”
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was a landmark bipartisan legislation passed in 1994 as the first comprehensive federal response to combatting domestic violence. The creation of VAWA visas allowed family members of abusive U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain their own immigration status without their partner.
The Trump administration, however, has eliminated longstanding VAWA guidance that exempted survivors from enforcement actions. With this change, a VAWA applicant or even someone with an approved application can now be detained and deported. Similarly, if a VAWA applicant is denied, they may be placed into proceedings and face potential deportation.
“Previously, the person was just left without any status, but now the administration is placing those individuals into removal proceedings where they have to go before a judge to defend against deportation,” Weibel said. “So the stakes are much, much higher, and unfortunately, what we are seeing is that some survivors are just not willing to take those risks.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi has also issued a decision in two cases, Matter of S-S-F-M- and Matter of R-E-R-M– & J-D-R-M-, in which she rolled back decades of progress that recognized domestic and gender violence as violations of women’s human rights. Bondi’s decision revived a 2018 restriction on gender-based asylum, when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared that domestic violence victims should not qualify for asylum.
With this decision, it will be much harder for asylum claims to succeed, requiring extensive legal work from attorneys to gather evidence, prepare testimony and build detailed case arguments to defend their clients.
“They will likely have to ask survivors to speak and spend extra time testifying about their past traumas. They may need to call on expert witnesses to testify in their cases. And those same attorneys are now going to have to dedicate pages upon pages of their legal briefs to make out the legal arguments that they used to be able to just cite to one specific case in order to meet that legal burden,” Weibel said. “But for unrepresented asylum seekers, I think, sadly, it is now next to impossible for them to win their cases without attorneys.”
These legal hurdles to survivors’ safety create life or death stakes, as women and families may be deported to countries where they face grave risks such as femicide and homicide, Wiebel said.
While many gender-based violence non-profits have undergone federal DEI funding cuts, panelists stressed the abundance of assistance ready to support survivors. Attorney-client privilege ensures confidentiality through legal help, with additional available hotlines or referrals for further assistance. Some organizations also do family preparedness planning in the event that a parent or guardian gets deported. Educational protections and mental health support are also available through local and national victim support lines.
Patima Komolamit, executive director for the Pacific Asian Family (CPAF), said her nonprofit provides a multilingual crisis hotline, an emergency shelter program, two transitional shelter programs and other community services programs to assist non-English speakers experimenting domestic violence.
“I just want to bring to the table the vulnerability that immigrant survivors face because of their limited English proficiency, their lack of employment history within the United States and oftentimes the coercive and exploitative use of immigration status as a means to also further oppress and further abuse,” Komolamit said.
CPAF aims to break through these cultural and language barriers to provide support for the most vulnerable victims. These and many other community organizations are working to heal the wounds of trauma and fear through crisis intervention services. However, the vulnerability and isolation felt in immigrant neighborhoods are driving a growing climate of anxiety that continues to threaten the safety of the broader community.
“This is not just a humanitarian crisis, it’s a public safety crisis,” McDonald said. “When survivors are silenced, abusers go free. When immigrants are too afraid to call the police, everyone is less safe.”
Confidential domestic violence support is available 24/7 through the National Domestic Violence Hotline over call, text, and online chat.
