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9 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 263 (1995)
Restoring Hope or Tolerating Abuse - Responses to Domestic Violence against Immigrant Women

handle is hein.journals/geoimlj9 and id is 273 raw text is: NOTES RESTORING HOPE OR TOLERATING ABUSE? RESPONSES TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST IMMIGRANT WOMEN SusAN GIRARDO Roy* I. INTRODUCTION Elizabeth McCandless Murray had been the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her Irish immigrant husband for almost all of the eleven months of their marriage. She had done everything recommended to protect herself: she took self-defense courses, got a job and developed financial independence, and left her husband, initiating divorce proceed- ings. Despite testimony that he brutally beat her, threatened to kill her and planned to flee the country to his native Ireland, the judge in the case declined to hold her husband without bail. Instead the judge froze the husband's bank account, and issued a restraining order. Her hus- band was able to hunt her down and kill both her and himself. The judge defended his actions on the grounds that he had urged the victim to press criminal charges against her husband, but she had refused.' Maria, a fifty-something-year-old Dominican immigrant, finally fled from her husband after years of abuse. One time I had eight stitches in my head, and a gash on the other side of my head, and he broke my ribs ... He would bash my head against the wall while we had sex .... He kept threatening to kill me .... ' She stayed with her husband because he was an American citizen, and she thought he was her only hope of * B.A. with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, Rutgers, The State University, 1989; M.A., The Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, The State University, 1990; J.D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center, May, 1996, The author wishes to thank her husband, Patrick B. Roy, for his constant support and assistance. 1. See, e.g., Bob Hohler, Murray Bail Is Issue on Court's Tape, BOSTON GLOBE, Dec. 25,1992, at 37. 2. Michelle J. Anderson, A License to Abuse: The Impact of Conditional Status on Female Immigrants, 102 YALE L.J. 1401 (1993) (citing Vivienne Wait, Immigrant Abuse: Nowhere to Hide; Women Fear Deportation, Experts Say, NEWSDAY, Dec. 2,1990, at 8).

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