The question of what constitutes “a particular social group” for purposes of asylum is one of the most difficult and vexing in immigration law.
The U.S. government on Wednesday ended two Trump administration policies that made it harder for immigrants fleeing violence to qualify for asylum, especially Central Americans. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued new instructions to immigration judges to stop following the Trump-era rules that made it tough for immigrants who faced domestic or gang violence to win asylum in the United States.
It’s a tough problem. You want, if a new Hitler starts slaughtering Jews, to require that the Jews be let in. (That’s why we have an asylum law.) But you want to make sure that the billions of people who live in the everyday violence of the undeveloped world don’t have to be let in.