The immigrant from India believed her husband when he said that if she wasn't gone by the time he got to their Georgia home in 10 minutes, he would kill her.
She said her husband and his family, who are also immigrants, abused her throughout their marriage, beating her with a belt, pouring hot water on her, cutting her, and pushing her head through a wall.
"Several times I tried to escape, but they found me and brought me back home," said the woman, who is in the country illegally and spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is afraid being identified would harm her chances of gaining legal status.
With no time to run after her husband's call in July 2020, she dialed 911, even though she knew she could be deported. The police arrived to find the husband threatening her with a knife in front of their young children, she recalled. He was arrested but not prosecuted, she said.
The woman and her children sought services from the Tahirih Justice Center, a national nonprofit organization that serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. She is still winding through the immigration process five years later.
Besides immigrants' increased vulnerability to sexual violence, they face a host of mental health and physical challenges, researchers say. They have high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, and anxiety, according to a 2024 study.
"Personally, I know anxiety related to the current political climate is precipitating expensive emergency room visits and negatively impacting people's ability to get to work and make a living," said Nicole E. Warren, a nurse midwife and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore.
Immigrants without legal status also face increased rates of chronic conditions and higher death rates from preventable diseases due to their limited access to health care and their fear of seeking it, advocates say.
"One of our clients was so afraid to leave her home that she avoided seeking medical care during her pregnancy, out of fear of interacting with ICE," said Miriam Camero, director of client advocacy, social services, at Tahirih.
Food banks have reported that many immigrants in need of food assistance have stopped coming, for fear of deportation.
It has always been difficult for people without legal immigration status to get help when they need it. The Trump administration's crackdown on people in the country illegally has intensified the pressure. The situation has also hampered the advocates and attorneys who defend their rights.
"We're working extra hours to do all the work," said Vanessa Wilkins, executive director of Tahirih's office in Atlanta. "The safety planning and added protection that clients might need, including documents just to make sure they are safe, can definitely make you feel overwhelmed."
U visas
For domestic abuse survivors without legal status, like the woman from India, going to the authorities seems more fraught amid the immigration crackdown, said Maricarmen Garza, chief counsel of the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence.
"There are just no guarantees," Garza said, "especially with how law enforcement is intertwined in enforcing immigration law."
In more than half of states, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can collaborate by formal written agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove people in the country illegally. Advocates say this can interfere with victims' efforts to get a certificate to file for a "U visa," which would allow them to live and work in the U.S. with the possibility of lawful permanent residency.
The battered woman from India recalls police telling her that if she did not press charges, she could get a certificate for a U visa. She agreed to their suggestion but recalls the anxiety of filing about five abuse reports over two years to get the certificate. "I got panic attacks just writing them down, because it meant I was reliving the situations again," she said.
When asked for comment about the difficulties immigrant domestic violence victims face, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson touted President Donald Trump's efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. "The president's successful effort to deport criminal illegal aliens is making all victims safer and ensuring they will never again be harmed by dangerous criminal illegal aliens," Jackson said in a statement. She said "allegations without evidence" that immigrants have been told to drop charges "should not be taken seriously."
Immigrant women without legal status can be particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation because of language barriers, as well as cultural and social isolation, researchers have found.
According to a 2023 report, lifetime rates of abuse by intimate partners range up to 93% in some immigrant groups, compared with about 41% of U.S.-born women experiencing such abuse in their lifetime.
As the Trump administration reshapes the country's immigration system, survivors of violence who entered the country illegally have a tough time proving their abuse and trauma to get relief, advocates say.
A refugee health and asylum program at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore provides immigrant victims of abuse with free forensic evaluations to support their claims for humanitarian relief, including applications for U visas.
Warren, the program's associate director for women's health, said that in the past, a written affidavit of the clinic's findings was enough to corroborate an applicant's legal accounts of past trauma.
"Now, we are getting requests for our in-person testimony," Warren said.
Application backlogs
The woman from India applied for a visa after she received a certificate from law enforcement allowing her to do so in 2023. Hers is one of nearly 11.6 million pending visa applications, according to data through June — the highest volume of cases ever recorded by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The number of pending U visa applications is 415,000, according to the agency.
Only about 10,000 U visas are issued per year, and it can take more than seven years to process applications, Garza said.
Adding to the pressure, the Trump administration has reduced the availability of Section 8 housing, which helps low-income individuals and others pay their rent. As of September, people without legal authorization to be in the United States are not eligible to receive rental help over U.S. citizens.
"If Tahirih wasn't behind me, I could be homeless," said the woman, who said she can afford only half her rent.
Victims' advocates say they are working harder than ever to support their clients but are stretched thin as they face federal funding cuts and increased demand.
The Tahirih center reported a 200% increase in call volume in the four months after Trump took office, compared with the same period last year.
"At the end of the day there are a lot of emails and a lot of people we aren't able to reach as quickly as in the past," said Casey Carter Swegman, the center's director of public policy.
To reach immigrant survivors of abuse who are afraid to come forward, advocates are "getting back to basics," said Joanna Otero-Cruz, executive director and president of the Philadelphia group Women Against Abuse.
"We're doing grassroots outreach to hairdressers and other small-business owners," she said. "They're the eyes and ears for us."
In Riverhead, New York, a 38-year-old woman who emigrated from El Salvador said she has twice been the victim of domestic abuse but was too scared to report it to police.
She said the second assault was by a man for whom she cooked and cleaned in his home. The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of her sense of shame and her fears of deportation, said he raped her, took pictures of her naked, and threatened to put them on social media if she tried to go to the police. He then stalked her, she said.
Noemi Sanchez, Long Island regional coordinator for the Rural & Migrant Ministry, a nonprofit that supports farm workers, is working closely with the woman to elevate her self-esteem and help her understand that "no woman deserves to have a man mistreat them."
Meanwhile, the survivor from India received a temporary work permit in 2024 and is employed as a certified nursing assistant, which "helps me survive," she said.
"I have really come a long way," she added. "It wasn't easy. I had great support behind me. They didn't let me down."
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