Explainer: Immigration Policy Updates and their Impact on
Survivors of Gender-based Violence

an alliance for immigrant survivors resource guide

Updated January 24, 2025
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See AIS Resource List: Ensuring Access to Services for Immigrant
Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors (AIS) is a resource for immigrant survivors of gender-based violence and those who serve them. Below is our initial analysis of select January 20, 2025 Executive Orders (EOs) and subsequently released administrative actions, specifically discussing the impact on immigrant survivors and access to protections for which they may be eligible. Though the barrage of executive actions on January 20, 2025 was part of a deliberate strategy to overwhelm, to sow fear, and to dehumanize immigrant communities, AIS is committed to standing alongside immigrant survivors and those who serve them, and we are ready to provide resources, support, and advocacy for paths to safety and protection.

Note: Given that new actions are still being announced and policy is very much in flux, we will update this document as new or different information becomes available. This resource sheet is provided for informational purposes only, and does not constitute legal advice or authority, nor is it for media attribution.

I. Executive Orders

A. Executive Orders Impacting Asylum and Refugee Processing

  • Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion This EO suspends entry into the United States of anyone engaging in “the invasion” across the southern border and restricts their ability to apply for asylum until the President deems “the invasion”  over. The order also directs government officials to take “all appropriate action to repel, repatriate, or remove” anyone engaging in “the invasion” at the southern border, and it would deny entry to anyone who does not submit health information and information regarding criminal history prior to entry.

    • This vague EO doesn’t define who is involved in an invasion, leading the door open for overbroad interpretations (the White House issued a fact sheet on the EO that does not provide any additional details). Further, legal experts are concerned that this is a way to circumvent Congress when it comes to immigration based on its reliance on Constitutional authority rather than specific statutes. 

  • Realigning the US Refugee Admission Program: This EO calls for state and local involvement in determinations of settlement, suspends refugee entry under U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) indefinitely, and suspends decisions on applications for refugee status (with exceptions for case-by-case grants jointly by the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security) until a finding is made that resumption of refugee entry would be in the best interests of the U.S. 

Impact on Immigrant Survivors: These Executive Orders, coupled with other recent administrative actions (like cancelling the CBP One App) make it nearly impossible to seek asylum in the United States, and brings refugee processing to a halt. People fleeing persecution do so under extreme threat at home for which there is no local remedy or protection. We know that survivors do not make the decision to leave lightly and when they do, it is often the most dangerous and lethal time for them. When safety is not possible at home, they make the journey to our border as their last hope for a life of dignity and justice. By closing the door to asylum seekers who are fleeing domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking and other harms, the Administration is condemning them to dangerous situations along our border where they could very well face further violence or lose their lives. 

B. Executive Orders Regarding the Southern Border

  • Military support - Declaring a National Emergency at the Border: This EO declares a national emergency to utilize military support with immigration enforcement at the border; calls on the Department of Defense to help DHS through provision of detention space, transportation and other logistical services, including border wall construction; states that the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Transportation shall “consider waiving” regulations that restrict drones within 5 miles of the border; calls for use of force policies to prioritize safety of DHS and military personnel; contains reporting requirements. The Executive Order on Clarifying the Military's Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States discusses deputizing the military for immigration enforcement, and providing “steady-state” southern border security. 

  • Securing Our Borders: This EO includes provisions resuming “Migrant Protection Protocols” (otherwise known as Remain in Mexico) and border wall construction as well as pursuing criminal charges against individuals who violate immigration laws and who facilitate unlawful presence. The EO similarly calls for increasing the use of immigration detention, ending CBP One, ending parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezualans (CHNV), using technology to determine claims of family relationships for individuals encountered by DHS, and taking measures to prosecute border-related offenses like smuggling and trafficking. 

    • Over 30,000 appointments scheduled via the CBP One App have been cancelled beginning Monday, January 20, 2025. All USCIS resources regarding CHNV parole have been removed from the USCIS website. 

Impact on Immigrant Survivors: The Remain in Mexico policy caused a humanitarian crisis when first implemented and would force asylum seekers, including those who have suffered gender-based violence, to remain in Mexico while awaiting their court dates in the United States.  Asylum seekers will not be able to access trained attorneys to assist them in navigating complex legal cases and will face squalid and dangerous conditions before they can get to safety in the United States. Asylum seeking survivors waiting in Mexico have very little access to safe housing and are easily identifiable as highly vulnerable among the local population. This puts them at increased risk of victimization by cartels and others who target them with impunity for rape, extortion, human trafficking and other crimes. Persecutors in survivors’ home countries are also more easily able to find and re-harm them while they are in Mexico.

C. Executive Order on Birthright Citizenship

The EO on Birthright Citizenship instructs federal departments and agencies not to issue documents recognizing U.S. citizenship or accept documents issued by states recognizing U.S. citizenship when the mother is unlawfully present and the father is not a United States citizen or a Green Card holder, or if the mother’s admission was lawful but temporary (like the visa waiver program) and the father was not a U.S. citizen or Green Card holder at time of birth. This EO is planned to go into effect on February 19, 2025 if it is not delayed by litigation.  The EO is NOT retroactive and would not apply to children born in the United States before the effective date. This EO would pertain to federally issued documents like passports and Social Security cards as well as impact eligibility for certain benefits. It does not directly impact the issuance of birth certificates which are usually administered by states.

D. Protecting the American People Against Invasion

This sweeping executive order focuses on interior enforcement and calls for the full enforcement of immigration law against inadmissible and removable non-citizens, including significant increases in immigration detention and detaining individuals pending the outcome of their removal proceedings, which could take years. The order also includes directives including (but not limited to):

  • Calling on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies to develop enforcement priorities, ensuring successful enforcement of final orders of removal, and instructing government agencies to prioritize the prosecution of criminal offenses related to unauthorized entry or continued unauthorized presence.

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors:  Outlining immigration enforcement priorities in such an overbroad manner as to place any undocumented person at risk of deportation, including families and survivors of crime creates a climate of fear and may lead to a survivor being deported before they have an opportunity to apply for relief for which they are eligible. This includes survivors who may have a criminal arrest or immigration violation as a result of the violence they suffered. There is real, integral fear of deportation that keeps immigrant victims from coming forward and reporting abuse. AIS will continue to provide updates as specific enforcement priorities are developed.

  • Establishing Homeland Security Task Forces, composed of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to combat transnational crimes, including smuggling and human trafficking. The Order also encourages the hiring of additional CBP and ICE agents, 287(g) and agreements to deputize local law enforcement to conduct immigration enforcement actions. It also seeks to restrict access to federal funding for “sanctuary jurisdictions.”

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors: We oppose increased entanglement between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement and efforts to withhold federal funds from jurisdictions considered to be “sanctuary jurisdictions.” Without the ability to trust local law enforcement, victims do not report crimes, witnesses abstain from coming forward with information, perpetrators go unpunished, and abuse continues. Abusers and traffickers know that the fear of deportation exists and often use immigration status as a tool of power and control to silence victims. As a result of victims’ silence, these perpetrators continue to be a danger to our communities.

  • Requiring all unregistered noncitizens to comply with registration requirements (which exist in the law but were never operationalized) outlining penalties for failure to comply.

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors: There are not any concrete details on this provision yet, though it is worth noting that individuals filing for immigration relief (including U and T nonimmigrant status) are already complying with biometrics requirements, which allow USCIS to complete criminal background checks. Any additional registration for those with pending benefit requests would be wasteful and inefficient.  AIS will monitor the implementation of this provision and provide further guidance.

  • Increasing the use and scope of expedited removal, which was further detailed in a Federal Register Notice issued by DHS on January 21, 2025, noting that the expansion of expedited removal would apply to noncitizens who did not arrive by sea, who are apprehended anywhere in the United States more than 100 air miles from a U.S. international land border, and who have been continuously present in the United States for less than two years.  The ACLU has already brought a legal challenge to these provisions.

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors:  If implemented, this policy will force people to prove to individual ICE officers, rather than immigration judges, that they should not be deported. It will place a burden on survivors to produce documentation challenging DHS accusations they should be subject to fast-track deportation. Survivors may be fleeing abuse and may not have access to evidence to demonstrate their continuous presence. This expansion would create additional and unnecessary barriers for survivors that compound the myriad challenges that they already face when accessing protections. The National Immigration Law Center has created these Know Your Rights Materials related to expedited removals, also available in Spanish. 

  • Re-establishing the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office to provide services to victims of crimes committed by removable individuals.  

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors: AIS fully supports access to information for victims of crime. Under the past Administration ICE administered the Victims Engagements and Services Line, that provided resources for all victims, regardless of immigration status or regardless of the immigration status of the perpetrator, including the ability to report sexual or physical violence in detention. We support comprehensive victims services, but do not support using such services as a tool to create false and harmful narratives against immigrant communities. 

  • Ensuring that employment authorization is not provided to anyone “unauthorized.”

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors:  Survivors may be forced to stay with abusers because they depend on them for financial support or housing. In one study, 99% of domestic violence victims reported experiencing economic abuse. Access to work authorization is critical for immigrant survivors, and any limitation on access to work authorization may prolong the period in which a survivor remains with abusers because they cannot obtain sufficient financial independence to safely leave. Individuals with pending petitions for U nonimmigrant status with a favorable bona fide determination or who are placed on the waiting list are eligible for employment authorization and a grant of deferred action. The same holds true for approved VAWA self-petitioners or those who were granted a favorable T bona fide determination. While deferred action is not a status, DHS has long considered deferred action recipients to be lawfully present as described in 8 C.F.R. sec. 1.3(a)(4)(vi) for purposes of eligibility for certain benefits during the period when deferred action is in effect. Recipients of deferred action are authorized to accept employment pursuant to regulation at 8 CFR 274a.12(c)(14). If a survivor has a pending adjustment application, they are also authorized to receive work authorization under 8 CFR 274a.12(c)(9).  

  • Increasing information sharing with state and local governments, and to facilitate information sharing to stop trafficking and smuggling of noncitizen children. 

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors: There are certain information confidentiality protections for immigrant survivors who are applying for or who hold certain victim-based benefits, like VAWA self-petitions, T or U nonimmigrant status. These protections, codified at 8 USC 1367, are statutory protections that must be followed when it comes to DHS, DOJ and Department of State information sharing policies. Further, there is specific guidance related to 1367 protections and disclosures related to national security or law enforcement purposes. 

  • Requiring the Attorney General and DHS Secretary to review and, if appropriate, audit contracts, grants and other agreements that provide funding to NGOs supporting or providing services, either directly or indirectly to removable or undocumented individuals, and to pause all distribution of funds pending the review.  

    • Impact on Immigrant Survivors: Access to legal services for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence, can be a game-changer--helping to achieve successful outcomes that promote a survivor’s safety and security. The Violence Against Women Act specifically lists immigration matters as a covered form of legal assistance. Violence Against Women Act self-petitions were created in 1994 and U and T nonimmigrant status were created as part of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. These protections have existed for decades. Providing funds to support legal services to survivors helps them access safety measures and encourage them to come forward to report crimes. A 2016 joint government advisory to federally funded programs notes, “it is important that government-funded and community based programs, services, or assistance… remain accessible to all eligible individuals, regardless of immigration status. For example, immigrants experiencing domestic violence or other abuse, including sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, or human trafficking, often face significant obstacles to seeking help and safety. In particular, access to emergency shelter and transitional housing are crucial to a battered immigrant's ability to escape abuse and break the cycle of violence.” Many survivor-focused grants, like DOJ Office of Violence Against Women grants, help ensure access to long-standing legal protections for survivors and grantees undergo a strict selection, training and monitoring process already.

      AIS is monitoring this provision closely. We have already heard that programs that provide Legal Orientation Programs and other assistance at Immigration courts and detention centers have been told to stop their work. AIS is working on additional resources for service providers.  If your agency has questions or has been impacted by this provision of the EO please notify info@immigrantsurvivors.org. 

  • Directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to identify and stop the provision of public benefits to undocumented persons not eligible to receive them under the INA or other statutory provisions.

II. Administrative Actions

  • Recission of Protected Areas Memo On January 20, 2025, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamin Huffman rescinded the 2021 memo on Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas that provided guidance to CBP and ICE agents in or near locations that required special protections like schools, hospitals, places of worship, social services locations like domestic violence shelters, and other locations.

  • New Memo on Courthouse Enforcement This week ICE also published a new memo on conducting enforcement actions at courthouses. This memo outlines that enforcement actions can be conducted against individuals including those who pose national security or public safety threats, specific individuals with criminal convictions, gang members, individuals who have a prior order of removal but who have not departed, or individuals who have unlawfully re-entered the country after being removed. The guidance provides that accompanying family members or friends may be subject to enforcement actions on a case-by-case basis.  It directs actions, to the extent practicable, to occur in non-public areas (and to generally avoid enforcement actions at areas within courthouses that are wholly dedicated to non-criminal proceedings such as family court). Moreover, the memo directs ICE to abide by local laws forbidding immigration enforcement at specific locations, and requires ICE officers and agents to coordinate with the relevant local Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) before conducting enforcement actions at newer courthouses to determine whether jurisdiction-specific legal limitations apply.

    • Impact on Survivors: Terminating these protections against enforcement actions will have an enormous chilling effect, if a survivor believes they risk deportation by going to the hospital, walking their children to school, seeking refuge at their place of worship, seeking justice at a courthouse or accessing victim services. Note that the law requires ICE agents to follow special protocols when conducting enforcement actions at specified locations to ensure information protections for survivors were not violated. Under the law, these locations include a domestic violence shelter, a rape crisis center, supervised visitation center, family justice center, a victim services, or victim services provider, or a community-based organization;  a courthouse (or in connection with that appearance of the individual at a courthouse) if the individual is appearing in connection with a protection order case, child custody case, or other civil or criminal case relating to domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, or stalking.

      Even with the new executive orders, existing DHS guidance strongly encourages DHS officers to exercise prosecutorial discretion favorably in cases of noncitizens encountered at these specified locations, unless other exigent circumstances or extraordinary reasons exists and the ICE guidance on Implementing a Victim Centered Approach with Noncitizen Crime Victims currently remains operational. It is also critical to check if there are local laws regarding enforcement actions at courthouses, and to advocate for additional protections. 

      For further information about these provisions, see this Fact Sheet from the National Immigration Law Center.

      AIS will be monitoring further changes in policy and we want to hear your questions and stories on how these policies are impacting survivors in your area. Please reach out to AIS at info@immigrantsurvivors.org 

The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors (AIS) is a network of advocates and allies across the
country dedicated to defending and advocating for policies that ensure immigrant survivors
of domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and other gender-based abuses have
access to life-saving protections that all survivors of violence deserve.