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EspañolCan a shelter report an undocumented victim?
When a person is undocumented, in general, it can often be a good first step for them to consult with an attorney that specializes in immigration so that they can learn how any option that they may pursue could affect them. We have some information on lawyers in your state [INSERT LINK] as well as immigration-specific resources on our website. In many states a person may be able to find a legal services organization that serves immigrant populations, or even specifically immigrants who have experienced domestic violence.
In terms of your question about the risks for contacting shelters, I reached out to a confidentiality expert to learn about possible legal constraints on shelters and whether or not they may be able to divulge someone’s immigration status and she provided the following information: “A shelter should not be sharing information about people inside and should not even need to know whether someone is undocumented. They may ask for a Social Security number but all people are allowed to refuse to answer that question.”
The expert also explained that if a shelter is funded by VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) funds, which many domestic violence services are, they would be prohibited from disclosing any personal identifying information of a victim outside of the shelter, since VAWA creates strict confidentiality requirements for domestic violence services. It may be difficult to know if a specific shelter is VAWA-funded before going there, though. Also, she indicated that states may have additional confidentiality protections or advocate-client privilege protections that prevent a domestic violence advocate from informing anyone that a victim is undocumented. Here is a chart that shows these types of state laws.
One option may be for a person to contact a shelter and ask hypothetically if they work with undocumented victims of domestic violence and if they have any policies regarding confidentiality and the safety of undocumented victims specifically. We have information on our website about state and local domestic violence programs [INSERT LINK], some of which are shelters.
