Update (8/7/2018): Today we filed a federal lawsuit against Jeff Sessions for his new policy of rejecting asylum protections for domestic violence survivors. But while we’re fighting this policy in court, you can help us build our power by getting as many signatures as possible. Add your name now.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions just announced a cruel decision to change longstanding asylum rules to exclude victims of domestic violence and people fleeing violent gangs. This will come with grave consequences, especially for the thousands of women who risk their lives fleeing abusive marriages, families, and other relationships. Now these women have nowhere to go.

It’s obvious this is yet another part of the Trump administration’s racist, anti-immigrant agenda – an agenda that has driven fear into immigrant communities throughout this country and slashed the hopes of refugees and asylum seekers who once dreamed of finding safety and protection within our borders. This is a shameful day in the history of our country.

Many of us are already paying attention to this administration’s vicious scheming to slam the door on immigrants by any means available – even if that means separating families at the border, hunting noncitizens on Greyhound buses, detaining asylum seekers, and now, turning away women fleeing domestic violence. People across the country are outraged at these indecent actions, and officials like Sessions and the members of Congress who voted to confirm him should take notice. We’re signing petitions, we’re taking to the streets, we’re seizing every opportunity to expose the cruel policies of this administration, and you can be sure we’ll remember at the ballot box in November.

With this decision, the Trump administration is sending a clear message: asylum seekers need not apply, women need not apply, immigrants need not apply. It’s an affront to the most fundamental values of this country – values engraved onto our crowning monument, the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Instead of staying true to the spirit of this country, this administration is telling survivors of domestic violence to seek safety elsewhere. But for many of these women, there is no other place to go. And that can make Sessions’ ruling, for some, effectively a death sentence.

None of us can stay silent in the face of such cruelty. Add your name now to speak up and fight back.