Singled Out: Scaling Violence and Social Groups as Legal Borderwork in U.S. Asylum Law

Abstract

Through legal interpretation of immigration categories, such as the refugee definition, signatories to the UN Refugee Convention restrict access to political asylum. This paper examines how scalar logics are used in legal interpretation to filter out particular people from national space and control the number legally entitled to enter and remain in the U.S. Scalar logics shape access by requiring asylum seekers to prove they have been ‘singled out’ for persecution and by steering the meaning of the ‘particular social group’ provision of the refugee definition. The restrictive effects of these scalar logics are analyzed in relation to case law involving Central American asylum seekers fleeing gang‐related violence. These cases are often rejected on the basis that the asylum seekers possess identities and experiences exceeding the limited protection offered by asylum. Through analysis of these scalar logics, the paper highlights how interpretations of the refugee definition are an ongoing site of struggle over the scope of asylum protection.

• Central America
• gangs
• political asylum
• refugees
• scale
• scalar logics

Notes

1. On June 11, 2018, he declared that the two main types of violence afflicting Central American asylum seekers, gang and domestic violence, would no longer be valid bases of asylum (Matter of A‐B‐ 2018)

2. Most asylum adjudicators are in the executive branch, except for the federal courts, which are part of the judicial branch. Federal circuit court precedent setting decisions only have authority in that court's specific territorial jurisdiction.

3. The BIA finally granted asylum to a domestic violence survivor as a matter of precedent in Matter of A‐R‐C‐G‐ (2014), but Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned this decision in Matter of A‐B‐ (2018).

4. For example, in 2015 Mexico and China had almost the same number of asylum seekers in the United States, yet Chinese asylum seekers only had a 20 percent rejection rate (TRAC Immigration 2016, Migration Policy Institute 2018)

5. Interview notes on file with author

6. In addition to the proposed social group under review, these descriptions are drawn from the BIA's summary of existing case law embedded in the decisions that date back to the early 1980s

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cynthia S. Gorman

Cynthia S. Gorman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, West Virginia University, Department of Geology & Geography, Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, 227 Brooks Hall, 98 Beechurst Ave, Morgantown, WV 26506; [[email protected]].