ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the institutional power that is part of the US asylum process for claims of gender-based violence undermines intersectionality even though this particular legal process is meant to “see women.” By exploring the asylum application quandary for cases of gender-based violence specifically, it discusses the process of drafting a declaration and explain how it relies on colonial logics to have any persuasion with a review committee. The declaration that is part of the asylum application process on gender-based violence is a deeply flawed one as it not only relies on simplistic framing, but is allergic to nuance or situational context. One can be from a community that strives to address gender-based violence at the community level, not through the police, and yet the situation is so grave that safety and security are still not viable, forcing one to flee to the United States.
