How U.S. Border Policy Is Endangering Women Asylum Seekers
When Artemis Ghasemzadeh fled Iran last December, it wasn’t only as a Christian convert, but as a woman marked for persecution, she said. Amid Iran’s brutal crackdown on women following the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the government’s so-called “morality police”, Ghasemzadeh’s fervent support for women’s rights made her a target of the Iranian government. Ghasemzadeh made the treacherous journey to the U.S. southern border, at one point ending up in a detention camp near the Darién jungle in Panama, hoping to receive asylum.
Instead, within hours of crossing into the United States, Ghasemzadeh said she was detained by U.S. border control, denied access to legal counsel, and never granted the required “credible fear” interview guaranteed under U.S. and international law to asylum seekers. Within days, she was placed on a military aircraft and deported to Panama, a country that had signed a third-country agreement with the U.S. in July 2024 to help the country carry out mass deportations of third-country nationals.
“Artemis Ghasemzadeh was denied the due process afforded to asylum seekers by law, plain and simple,” said Arizona Representative Yassamin Ansari in a press release. Ansari introduced a bill to Congress named after Ghasemzadeh earlier this year, seeking to protect asylum seekers like Ghasemzadeh from being removed from the U.S. without due process and to restore access to legal protections for asylum seekers.
Such access disappeared on January 25, when U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14159, effectively suspending all asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border by invoking a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that cites an alleged “invasion.” The move is seen by immigration advocates as a gross overreach by the administration and an abuse of executive power.
“We’re talking about moms and kids who are coming across to seek protection as they are legally able to do,” said Edith Sangüeza, senior staff attorney at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS).
Sangüeza said referring to migrants entering between ports of entry as part of an “invasion” is “ludicrous and shameful.”
Women Left Behind
Data on how many asylum claims are based on gender-specific harm is incomplete or entirely lacking. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not systematically report this information, making it nearly impossible to determine how many women are denied protection due to forms of persecution that are uniquely gendered.. What is known is that 44 percent of asylum seekers in 2023 were women, and the leading countries of origin of asylum seekers were Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia, where femicide rates are among the highest in the world, and justice for survivors is rare. For women fleeing such violence, access to help – and hope – in the United States ended in January with Trump’s proclamation.
“It’s stunning,” said Sangüeza, “It is being used not only to keep people from entering, but to deport people who are already inside the country, who are legally requesting asylum. It’s our obligation to not return people to places where they could face persecution or they could face harm.”
U.S. soldiers put concertina wire atop a building along the Southwest border of the United States near Hidalgo, Texas. Credit: CBP
Executive Order 14159 does not distinguish between asylum claims based on political opinion, religion, or gender-based persecution despite the fact that Gender-based violence, femicide, and persecution of women are all legitimate (and increasingly common) grounds for asylum. By collapsing the distinct experiences of women and girls into a single framework of all asylees, the policy ignores the unique risks women face, including sexual, domestic and psychological violence, harmful traditional practices, severe discrimination and penalties or punishment for non-compliance with a law or policy.
In Iran, for women deemed in contempt by morality police, punishment can mean detention where they are subject to violence, rape, and psychological torture. In Afghanistan, women are facing uniquely gendered atrocities at the hands of the Taliban since its 2021 takeover of the country. After January, women who live in these realities and have sought asylum in the United States will not have their cases processed, nor will they be guaranteed the basic screening interviews that evaluate whether they have a credible fear of persecution — a cornerstone of U.S. immigration law since the Refugee Act of 1980. Instead, nearly all are subject to expedited removal, regardless of their personal circumstance.
“The specific cases of the women fleeing Afghanistan and this terrible violence against women under the Taliban, they were highly educated women with careers,” said Silvia Serna, an Attorney, Global Strategic Litigation Council. “None of them were expecting charity. They all were planning on working in the U.S. and contributing to their society.”
How we got here
In answering his campaign promise to uphold strong southern border security, Trump’s executive order maintained support from his base. An AP-NORC poll conducted last month revealed that 46 percent of respondents approve of his handling of immigration, a rate unchanged from prior polls.
In 2021, there were 89,040 defensive asylum claims received in the U.S., according to DHS. These claims are filed by migrants who enter the country between official ports of entry and seek asylum as a defense against deportation. This contrasts with affirmative asylum claims, which are made by individuals who enter the U.S. legally, often on visas, and then apply for asylum. By 2023, defensive asylum claims had surged to more than 488,000. During that same period, over 2.5 million people were allowed to remain in the U.S. while awaiting immigration hearings, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute.
Now, some of those who have been living legally in the country while awaiting decisions are encountering a new threat: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents reportedly waiting outside courtrooms to detain them as they arrive for their hearings.
“The system was already extremely overwhelmed,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute and author of the Outmatched report on asylum backlogs. “There were nearly 3.3 million pending asylum applications across USCIS and immigration courts.” That’s the highest level in U.S. history.
“Every update was a new broken record,” she said.
Bush-Joseph cited several factors behind the spike. “Post-pandemic, the U.S. economy was booming and there were a lot of open jobs — many filled by immigrants with or without work authorization. People were applying for asylum because they needed protection, but also because it was one of the few avenues available to live and work legally in the U.S.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection process asylum-seekers who have active applications under the Migrant Protection Protocols at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, on February 26, 2021. Credit: CBP
In response to Trump’s executive orders on immigration, U.S. Border Control reported an astounding 94 percent decrease in individuals apprehended while crossing the border between ports of entry in February, compared to the same time last year, and reported 90 percent less encounters at official ports of entry than the month before.
The effectiveness of the administration’s policies is clear. Experts maintain that their legality, however, is not.
“Our commitment as a nation to asylum seekers and to refugees goes back to World War II when there were millions of people systematically murdered because of their religion and race,” said Sangüeza. “After that, many of the leading powers in the world came together and said never again.”
That promise was codified in the 1980 Refugee Act, which granted people the right to seek asylum “regardless of status or means of entry” — a right undone with one sweeping order.
“I anticipated that the Trump administration would push legal boundaries, but they have exceeded what I expected,” said Bush-Joseph.
The future of EO 14159 now rests in the courts. In RAICES v. Noem, CGRS and its partners argue that the order unlawfully exceeds presidential authority and violates both domestic and international refugee law. Oral arguments were heard in April; a ruling is expected soon.
Sangüeza hopes the judge will strike it down and restore access to asylum. “If this is allowed to stand, we’re setting a precedent for a total power grab where the president can override Congress and ignore statutory law entirely.”
An uncertain future
The consequences of EO 14159 are not confined to U.S. soil. As the U.S. shuts its doors and offloads responsibility to less-equipped nations like Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico, the global asylum system bears the strain.
“The U.S. used to be a leader in humanitarian protection,” said Bush-Joseph. Now, its standing in the international community has changed dramatically. The question is whether other countries will step up, and what that means for the future of global refugee protection.”
For the women behind the numbers, the damage feels immediate and irreparable.
Ghasemzadeh is one of 12 Iranian Christian asylum seekers deported to Panama under EO 14159 represented by Serna. Their initial 90-day stay expired on June 7; a short extension was granted, but their future remains uncertain. Panama’s asylum system doesn’t issue work permits during processing, and cases can take years.
“It’s not sustainable. Without the ability to work or integrate, many will be forced to return home—or attempt to migrate again, this time illegally,” said Serna.
While each woman’s story is unique, Serna sees a clear pattern.
“Every woman I’ve met in these cases was a caregiver,” Serna said. “To a child. To a parent. To a community. They didn’t come here to break the law. They came here believing the United States was a place that protects people from violence.”
“These are caregivers and leaders in their communities,” she said, “and that affects us all.”