An Analysis on Domestic Violence due to SpouseBased Immigration Laws in the USA

Domestic violence is a booming issue and a genuine concern in various countries across the world. Be it strained marriages or family members, it is a fact that domestic violence does not differentiate on the basis on gender, class, caste, nationality, or creed. In the case of a battered immigrant citizen, it is a rather overwhelming process to approach authorities considering his/her conditional resident status. One of the essential objectives of the instant research paper is to analyse the unprecedented risk faced by women or men in such marriages due to lack of knowledge about the local criminal justice, police and legal system in the place they have immigrated to. The roots of spouse-based immigration laws can be traced back to the common law doctrine of coverture which establishes the total control over a wife by a husband and chastisement allowed the punishment of a wife by a husband to force obedience to that power . It can be said that the doctrine is extremely patriarchal and archaic with respect to the rights that women have today. Hence, it can be said that this doctrine that heavily discriminates gender is the primary cause of having spouse domination, a major flaw in various immigration laws related to marriage that subsequently leads to domestic violence. Hence, the instant research paper aims to critically analyse the roots of such heavily discriminatory spouse-based immigration laws, the issues faced by such battered immigrants and it also will explore the legal rights that such immigrant spouses have who are trapped in domestic violence .