Hickey: GOP opposition to Violence Against Women Act reprehensible

By What would it take to turn the Violence Against Women Act, which enjoyed overwhelming… What would it take to turn the Violence Against Women Act, which enjoyed overwhelming congressional support since Bill Clinton first signed it in 1994 and helped increase reportage of domestic violence by 51 percent, into partisan legislation?

Simply put, not much. The new incarnation of the Violence Against Women Act, sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Michael Crapo (R-Idaho), who is not, passed the Judiciary Committee earlier this month on a party line vote of 10-8. Apparently, expanding visa options for abused immigrants and forbidding domestic violence centers that receive government funding from turning away victims on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity are so controversial that not a single Republican in the Committee could bring himself or herself to reauthorize the Act.

The reauthorization modestly increases the availability of the VAWA Self-Petition, which allows immigrant women in abusive marriages to apply for legal immigration status for themselves and their children without the knowledge or permission of their abusers. Domestic violence experts have applauded the expansion, as immigrants in the United States are uniquely vulnerable to partner violence. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, roughly 60 percent of married and 50 percent of unmarried immigrant women have experienced physical or sexual abuse. And between 1995 and 2002, 51 percent of New York City’s intimate partner homicide victims were born outside America.

Abusive partners of immigrants frequently use their victims’ immigration status as a means of control — for example, by hiding or destroying important papers like visas and green cards or threatening to report the victim to the immigration authorities. Before the original Violence Against Women Act and the creation of the VAWA Self-Petition, an undocumented immigrant married to a citizen or long-term resident would be dependent on her spouse, no matter how violent, to apply for legal residency on her behalf. The VAWA Self-Petition provides an alternative, and the new expansions make that alternative easier for women in danger to access.

Yet Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, can’t support reauthorizing VAWA because he believes this modest expansion of visa access will be “manipulated as a pathway to U.S. citizenship for foreign con artists and criminals.”

Grassley also called the new provision ensuring LGBTQ victims aren’t discriminated against by organizations receiving government funding “a solution in search of a problem … a political statement that shouldn’t be made on a bill that is designed to address actual needs of victims” and insisted that advocates of the new protections haven’t produced any evidence that discrimination against LGBT victims is a real phenomenon.

Grassley evidently didn’t ask the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, which conducted a survey finding that 85 percent of service providers have worked with domestic violence victims who have been denied service on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Additionally, 91 percent worked with victims who were discriminated against by domestic violence organizations, and 64 percent had worked with victims who were discriminated against by law enforcement. Considering that, according to the same Coalition, the incidence of domestic violence among same-sex couples is approximately 25-33 percent — that is, no different from the prevalence of violence in heterosexual relationships — that’s a lot of LGBT victims who aren’t being served.

Although Grassley and the other Judiciary Committee Republicans claim that they’re only stalling this lifesaving legislation so as to protect government-funded agencies’ right to discriminate against abuse victims, it’s likely they never really supported VAWA to begin with. The substitute version of the legislation that Grassley proposed — which the committee defeated, also on a party-line vote — not only eliminated the LGBT protections and expanded visa options but proposed a huge reduction in authorized financing and called for the elimination of the Justice Department Office on Violence Against Women, which is responsible for actually enforcing VAWA.

Thankfully, of course, the reauthorization passed the Senate Judiciary Committee anyway. According to the bill’s co-sponsors, VAWA enjoys more bipartisan support in the full Senate. One of the major co-sponsors is a Republican, as are four of its 34 co-sponsors, and Crapo is optimistic that the reauthorization will pass in a floor vote.

And one should hope so. Domestic violence is a huge problem for people of all races, sexes, ethnicities and yes, sexual orientations. The U.S. Justice Department reports that roughly three women are killed by intimate partners every day, and according to the Associated Press, homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in America — and that’s only the cases that escalate to homicide. Protections and services for victims of domestic violence are absolutely essential, and anyone willing to throw them out the window just to spite LGBT people is no friend to women or anyone else in this country. Let’s hope that common sense and compassion — or, barring that, election-year motivations — will compel GOP senators to act responsibly when VAWA comes to a floor vote.

Contact Tracey at tbh15@pitt.edu.