“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Warsan Shire, poet
The recent changes to asylum law, both on the books and on the ground, are driving the current state of U.S. asylum policy even further away from the spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention. On June 11, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a precedential decision (Matter of A-B-), overturning a prior opinion which allowed certain domestic violence survivors to receive asylum protection. The AG’s decision purports to further limit asylum claims involving harm by “private” or non-state actors.
