The Intersecting Dilemma of Family Law and Immigration Law for Abused Immigrants in the United States

• In Event: Sociology of Law Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Sociology of Law Section Roundtables: Table 2 — Immigration, Law, and Belonging

Abstract

Women and children are vulnerable social groups in general, including in the settings of legal proceedings of dissolution of marriage and custody battle. Such vulnerabilities of women and children may arise from structural constraints and inequalities of gender, extension of domestic violence and its representation in the familial court settings when dissolution of marriage and custody disputes come into play. It further adds a nuanced layer of complexity when these women and/or children are spouses and/or children whose legal statuses in the immigration country rely on their husband’s and/or father’s. The negative impacts and consequences of family law and immigration law function on a reciprocal basis. The reliance on the husband’s legal status affords the husband more leverages and poses challenges to wife in family courts. Once dissolution of marriage is finalized, the wife may have to immediately leave the immigration country and face parental alienation from their children. The husband may take advantage of his legal status to get the custody of the minor children, and further his domestic violence against the wife through legal abuses. The immigration relief avaialble in the United States includes VAWA, Victim of Crime Visa, and asylum, but the eligibility requirements and the restricted interpretation of asylum grounds by the United States courts do not favor this groups of victims all the time. This research includes two parts; the first focuses on law review and literature review on the intersection of family law and immigration law, with a focus on the United States; the second part focuses on empirical research built on the intersectionality theory, grounded theory, and the legal abuse scale by Gutowski and Goodman (2022).

Author

• Yi Rong, University of Florida