DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS DON'T NEED ADDED FEAR OF DEPORTATION

The nation's most prominent domestic violence hotline has been lighting up a lot more lately when it comes to immigration-related calls. This is due in no small part to the stepped-up approach under the Trump administration to essentially apprehend anyone who is undocumented almost anywhere they go.

As The Associated Press reported, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, established by Congress in 1996 and partly reliant on federal funding, said last week in its annual report that it responded to 323,660 phone calls, texts and online contacts in 2016. Of these calls, 7,053 involved immigration-related issues -- up nearly 30 percent from 2015.

Victims of domestic violence, in general, are reluctant to contact authorities in the case of abuse because they fear retribution. Now, many of these victims have an added worry: the fear of being deported.

Katie Ray-Jones, the hotline's CEO, said many of the callers were not U.S. citizens and were warned by their abusers that they and their families would be deported if the abuse was reported to the police. In some cases, she said, the abusers had threatened to call immigration authorities. In addition, Ray-Jones said, relatives, friends and neighbors of immigrant abuse victims who might have in the past contacted authorities are also reluctant to do so for fear they, too, might be targeted for deportation.

"We're not in a place where we can say, 'Oh, don't worry. That's not going to happen.'" Ray-Jones said

Such is the grim plight for thousands of nameless abuse victims, mostly women but also men, who may be violently taunted, seriously injured or even killed because of the ham-fisted and less than passionate approach to immigration policy put forward by President Donald Trump and his Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who recently said that even a "single DUI" can start the deportation process.

Of course, this is not just a national issue, but a very local one as well. At a town-hall-style meeting in late February at City Hall in Passaic, Police Chief Luis Guzman and Mayor Hector Lora tried to reassure those present not to be afraid to report crimes, even in cases of domestic violence. No doubt, in households across North Jersey, conversations among immigrants, some of whom have been here for decades, are taking place about how to approach such subjects under the new regime.

Ray-Jones said her staffers have encouraged domestic violence victims to seek refuge at domestic violence shelters, even though some victims fear such facilities might also be targeted by immigration authorities, if not today, then possibly sometime in the future. Kim Gandy, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, said it made sense that immigration-related calls to the abuse hotline, which allows callers to remain anonymous, would increase.

Mayors from Denver to Los Angeles and elsewhere have begun to speak up on the issue of how the new immigration policy is affecting domestic violence cases. More pressure, perhaps from municipal officials in North Jersey, should be brought on the Trump administration to give these abuse victims some peace of mind. Domestic violence is an awful crime against humanity, and it should be treated as such. An abuse victim's immigration status shouldn't be part of the conversation, and certainly shouldn't add to the grave fear these victims live in already.