2024 ICADV Fall Conference

The intersection of immigration status and domestic and sexual violence (referred to here as DSV) presents unique challenges, obstacles, and considerations for survivors. Immigrant communities experience DSV at rates that meet or exceed those of the population as a whole. Immigrant communities also experience the convergence of many other risk factors for DSV including inadequate education, past victimization and prior trauma, financial vulnerability, inexperience with cultural norms in the United States, and racism. Where a noncitizen is the survivor of DSV, an abuser may often use the noncitizen’s immigration status as tool to further violence, including threats of deportation and reporting to immigration officials and isolating the noncitizen from available resources, including law enforcement.    This presentation will seek to explain the confluence of immigration status and DSV through a trauma-informed and culturally sensitive lens. We will explain the ways that immigration status may be a risk factor for DSV and, importantly, what types of immigration relief are available to noncitizen survivors of DSV. We will address how service providers can further equitable access to help through language access and culturally responsive practices.