Immigration judge says woman's forced labor was "material support" for terrorists

After being forced to cook and clean for a gang in El Salvador, her claim for asylum in the US is denied.

REBEKAH ENTRALGO JUN 16, 2018, 9:21 AM

With the Trump administration’s implementation of a “zero-tolerance” policy towards immigration, it’s easy to forget that the mistreatment of immigrants seeking the asylum in the United States is nothing new.

Nowhere else is this more true than in a recent decision handed down by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) last week.

In the Matter of A-C-M, the BIA concluded that a woman who was “kidnapped and required to perform cooking and cleaning for [El Salvadoran] guerrillas under threat of death” is ineligible for asylum.

The reason? The BIA classified her forced labor as “material support” to a terrorist organization that “aided them in the continuing their mission of armed and violent opposition to the Salvadoran Government.”

Not only was the woman kidnapped and forced to perform domestic duties against her will, but she also was “forced to witness her husband…dig his own grave before being killed.”

https://thinkprogress.org/immigration-judge-says-womans-forced-labor-was-material-support-for-terrorists-ce323407bdfe/