The Obama standard is, to an initial reading, a reasonable and compassionate analysis. The brief did not go to the issue of whether or not this woman in particular should qualify for asylum.

It's clear that simply alleging abuse, even horrific abuse, is and should not be sufficient to obtain asylum and automatic immigration to the United States. Millions of women in the United States are also abused, should they be able to flee to Canada, the U.K., France, or another country of their choosing? Clearly not.

On the other hand, the Bush standard that woman who is a victim "merely" of domestic abuse should be automatically disqualified from asylum goes too far.

The threshold question that the woman is without official protection in her homeland seems like a good place to draw the line. The devil is in the details.

In particular, the allegations in this case that police refused to intervene, that he abuser was influential, and a judge tried to seduce her are all compelling, along with the horrific nature of her abuse. What troubles me, and should be an issue, is whether or not this was merely a local breakdown in the justice system. After all, you don't have to dig too deep within the United States to find examples of victims of DV with powerful husbands, apathetic police, and even lecherous, corrupt judges.

Musalo points out that it's not easy for DV victims to escape to a foreign nation for asylum. Fair enough, but then it should be even easier for them to relocate within their own nation. I think we can all agree that, despite the corruption and machismo culture of Mexico, brutal violence against wives and corrupt judges are not part of that country's domestic policy. Women there are de jure equal to men, if not always de facto. If a woman could relocate to any of many communities within her own country to escape a locally corrupt and broken justice and police system, then should she qualify for asylum, which is intended as a privilege of last resort? I think not. But this should be a fact-sensitive inquiry, as asylum cases always are.

In a particular case, an abuser might be so powerful and a country's justice system so weak that she might not be safe anywhere in her homeland, in which case I agree with the Obama DOJ that asylum is warranted.

It is significant, however, that this is a significant broadening of the historic basis of asylum, although it follows from extensions of recent caselaw.