Assault on Battered Immigrants: HR 4970 Undoes VAWA Protections and Risks Lives

" 'This will get people killed,' my colleague and I agreed while we reviewed the “Immigration Provisions” of HR 4970, the bill introduced in the House in April, ostensibly to “reauthorize” the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) originally promulgated in 1994 and reauthorized and strengthened since its original passing.  The Immigration Provisions found in Title VIII of HR 4970, however, will effectively dismantle VAWA as we know it in the immigration context, place people in danger, set up a system that will likely violate the United States’ treaty obligations, and reverse decades of progress in the nation’s understanding of domestic violence and the pernicious ways in which an abuser can exercise power and control in domestic relationships.  ...This bill effectively represents throwing decades of research and aggregated knowledge about domestic violence out the window and constitutes an abuser’s dream codified and approved by the federal government.  And no wonder.  The Huffington Post discovered one of the driving forces behind HR 4970 is the head of a mail order bride service.  A federal jury awarded one of the brides her company matched with an abusive American husband $434,000 after a trial.  The verdict was affirmed upon appeal by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  Go figure." - Myriam Jaidi, May 11, 2012.