The nation’s highest immigration court has found for the first time that women who are victims of severe domestic violence in their home countries can be eligible for asylum in the United States.

The decision on Tuesday by the Board of Immigration Appeals in the case of a battered wife from Guatemala resolved nearly two decades of hard-fought legal battles over whether such women could be considered victims of persecution. The ruling could slow the pace of deportations from the Southwest border, because it creates new legal grounds for women from Central America caught entering the country illegally in the surge this summer in their fight to remain here.

The board reached its decision after the Obama administration changed a longstanding position by the federal government and agreed that the woman, Aminta Cifuentes, could qualify for asylum.

Since 1995, when federal officials first tried to set guidelines for the immigration courts on whether domestic abuse victims could be considered for asylum, the issue has been reviewed by four attorneys general, vigorously debated by advocates and repeatedly examined by the courts. With its published decision, unusual in the immigration courts, the appeals board set a clear precedent for judges.