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The Case Of Rodi Alvaradoby Karen Musalo and Stephen Knight for Center for Gender And Refugee Studies
Background Rodi Alvarado Pena is a Guatemalan woman who suffered ten years of brutal violence at the hands of her husband, a former soldier. Despite her repeated attempts to obtain government protection, the police and the courts refused to intervene. When she ran away, her husband found her and beat her unconscious. Desperate to save her life, Ms. Alvarado finally fled to the United States, leaving her two children with relatives. She was fortunate to obtain the help of the San Francisco Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, which arranged for representation by a volunteer attorney. In 1996, a San Francisco immigration judge granted asylum to Rodi Alvarado. But the immigration service chose to appeal. Karen Musalo, now director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and lead attorney in the landmark Kasinga case, coordinated and co-authored an amicus brief submitted to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). In June 1999, the BIA reversed the decision of the immigration judge, and ordered that Ms. Alvarado be deported to Guatemala. The decision in Matter of R- A- led to denials of asylum protection to women fleeing a broad range of serious human rights violations, including trafficking for prostitution, gang rape and honor killing, as well as domestic violence. In the wake of the BIA's decision, Karen Musalo assumed sole responsibility for Rodi's legal appeal. In January 2001, then-Attorney General Janet Reno responded to a nationwide campaign of outrage and concern by overturning the BIA's decision. She ordered the BIA to issue a new decision in Rodi's case after the issuance of proposed Department of Justice regulations on the subject of gender asylum (read the regulations). Those regulations have never been finalized by the Bush Administration. Update
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