If you or someone you know needs help, you can reach the National Domestic Violence hotline at 800-799-SAFE. Please see a list of Milwaukee community resources at the end of this story.
Being victimized changes people. Undoing that trauma can often last a lifetime, and it can affect a person's ability to trust the systems that are supposed to protect them.
Mariana Rodriguez is the director of Milwaukee’s UMOS Latina Resource Center. It’s served Milwaukee’s immigrant community since 2001, and Rodriguez has been an advocate for over 20 years.
Among the services it provides, the center has a 24-hour crisis hotline for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors.
Rodriguez often helps people who are undocumented. She remembers meeting one woman who was at the beginning of her healing journey.
“Her husband was very much an alcoholic, you know, abusive...came the weekends and he would disappear and would use all the money, come home broke,” Rodriguez says. “She came to us very hesitant — which I understand — very hesitant to speak against their relationship, hesitant to even consider separation, because of family and the thought of the children not having a father.”
When an undocumented person is the victim of domestic violence, or another crime, there’s an additional layer of fear — fear of deportation if they go to the police.
"They don't want to create any more issues," says Rodriguez. "They don't want to create any harm on the batterer. They don't want to see the batterer being deported. And so a victim, especially a woman, has to navigate all of these spiritual, psychological, emotional decisions, that often a non-immigrant victim doesn't have to think about.”
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. created visas to protect undocumented immigrants who were victims of crime, and potentially give them a road to citizenship. The problem is, they can take years, and it comes at the cost of proving their abuse.
In this story, we're covering the U Visa for serious crime victims, and visas through the Violence Against Women Act or VAWA.
VAWA petitions
This visa is for undocumented folks who are suffering from abuse inside their family. It could be from their spouse, child or parent — but that person has to be a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident.
VAWA is supposed to make it easier for undocumented victims to come forward.
“Part of why that came about was because...women who were married to U.S. citizens and that whole legal status was used against them," Rodriguez says. "One of the things that [perpetrators] always did was 'I'm not going to apply [for a green card] for you.' It was a very coercive tactic. It kept victims in very abusive relationships.”
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) says almost 70,000 people filed VAWA petitions in the 2024 fiscal year. There is no limit on the number of visas the U.S. grants under VAWA.
But we don't know how many cases go unreported. People in that situation might fear that they won’t be believed. They have to navigate unfamiliar legal and medical systems. They may have fears about how their family will react or being separated from their children.
“Part of the nuances of victim's fear is that they lose custody of their children, and we know that to be true, that victims of domestic violence — women tend to lose their custody of their children at a very high rate," says Rodriguez. "That's a reality...Their fear, which is, 'I need to prepare myself and my children in case I get detained.'”
And even when a victim does come forward, there are other barriers.
“We have to be able to prove that there was violence. We have to be able to call the police," says Rodriguez. "We need to get that certification saying that they there was a call that came from that home or a certification from the district attorney's office that a victim was cooperating. And so that element of certification is sometimes a barrier for VAWA applicants.”
To begin the process, the survivor of abuse has to file a self-petition for a VAWA visa with USCIS. It can be filed without the knowledge of the abuser.
For those in Wisconsin, and a few other states, there is something that allows them extra support in the process. It’s called the Victim Accompaniment statute.
This means survivors can request an advocate to be with them during the legal process and in health care appointments. It gives them the chance to have a trusted person at their side.
"We're able to help that client prepare, and prepare for them to what's going to happen," says Rodriguez. "'The police is gonna come, they're gonna ask you questions...It's not because they don't believe you, but they are trying to find out what happened, OK?'"
Michael Longworth is a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee. It provides free legal help to people in need, including immigrants. He explains the evidence you need to show in a VAWA petition.
“That could be like abusive text messages, injuries, or like medical visits that would have notes about abuse occurring or any concern about abuse of the patient, or anything like that," says Longworth. "Then you submit them to USCIS and their current processing time is 43 months, so a little under 4 years.”
Four years is a long time for an abuse survivor to wait in limbo, wondering what they’ll do. It can put victims in a dangerous position.
Their abusers might still be in their lives. They might have children together. In the mean time, survivors can work with advocates to set up safety plans. They have to navigate how to secure work, housing, transportation, childcare, and other essentials. Rodriguez helps with that.
"So when we're hitting on how do we keep a victim safe, we have to look at the whole entire wheel of what is happening to that victim that is beyond just leaving a relationship," says Rodriguez. "It is much more than just 'Let's get you out of this house, let's just get you out of this relationship, and after that you're gonna be fine.' No. You leave that, now the bigger challenges happen.”
In a VAWA petition, the burden of proof is lower than say, a criminal court case. The person petitioning has to show that it’s more likely than not that they have been abused by a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident in their household.
Once USCIS decides the petition does meet that standard, the petitioner becomes eligible for things like housing assistance and food stamps, that could help them in leaving their abuser. Rodriguez says the Latina Resource Center has never seen a denied VAWA application, but it’s just the first step.
VAWA grants the petitioner four years of deferred action – meaning they have temporary permission to live in the U.S. This gives immigrants who suffered abuse protection against deportation and time to apply for a work permit and green card.
U visas
In some cases, the people seeking U visas have also experienced domestic violence, but it was at the hands of someone like a boyfriend, who isn’t their spouse. Or it was their spouse, but they are undocumented. For VAWA, the abuser needs to be a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident — but that's not the case for U visas.
This was the situation for the woman Rodriguez talked about earlier.
“She had three children, and [was] undocumented, and very much suffered a great deal of violence from her husband," says Rodriguez. "They were both undocumented."
The U visa was created for a similar reason to VAWA: to protect people without legal status when they report a crime. It gives them some form of assurance that they can go to the police without the risk of deportation.
The U visa though, unlike VAWA, is capped. Only 10,000 per year are granted.
The application requires a police report and a long list of documents to prove the crime, and its impact. Eligible crimes range from false imprisonment and sexual assault to blackmail and kidnapping. Or, domestic violence, like the woman Rodriguez helped.
“We became an important support for her, and we became her best secret," says Rodriguez. “We definitely shared with her...about the U visa, especially because she already had called the police multiple times. It was just a matter of us initiating the application.”
For an application to be successful, the district attorney’s office, or the police department, has to say that the victim helped in the investigation and prosecution of the crime.
"You'll gather those with your supporting documents as well, so any affidavits that you have stating any physical or mental harm as a result from the crime that you're filing the U visa for," says Attorney Michael Longworth. "As well as, if you have medical bills or anything like that, just anything kind of corroborating your evidence.”
VAWA cases typically take around four years. Longworth says for U visas, it’s an even longer wait: roughly 10 years for the average case. This protective program quickly transforms into a years-long limbo.
USCIS does have a way of indicating which cases will be approved.
“USCIS has developed a kind of internal practice of what's called a bona fide determination, where they'll look at it, and they won't approve or deny it, but they'll kind of give a hint of like, this is one that will likely be approved or one that will likely be denied, and then you can shift your strategy from there, however it may be,” says Longworth.
The long wait for U visas is partly because of the 10,000 cap. In the 2024 fiscal year, USCIS reported receiving over 41,000 U visa applications. The 10,000 that were approved that year were from previous years.
If the U visa is approved, it is valid for four years. The applicant gets temporary permission to live and work in the U.S. They can apply for a green card after they get the U visa.
Moving forward
Meeting survivors in one of the darkest moments of their lives gives advocates like Mariana Rodriguez a unique chance to build confidence and shower them in love and support. It also builds a bond that often carries on after their case is over.
Rodriguez still keeps in touch with the U visa applicant and domestic violence survivor she helped.
“She got her U visa. I think about 3 years after she secured her visa, she bought a house," Rodriguez says. "Her children are grown, and we still keep in touch with her.”
Advocates say when it comes to VAWA and U visas, not much has changed yet under the Trump administration. But they say Trump’s campaign to deport more immigrants has created a “chilling effect.”
Rodriguez says Milwaukee’s Latina Resource Center is working hard to make sure people know there is help for them. They want to prevent isolation that could do more harm than good.
“So I think about like how do we continue to stay connected during this time?" says Rodriguez. "We are approaching it the same way, we're doing a lot of outreach, we're participating in a lot of community events, visibility about our services, visibility of what we do.”
But she says, she’s impressed by the strength of the survivors she’s worked with. They have to sort through so many complex systems, all while carrying the trauma of abuse.
“The need to navigate systems is our history," Rodriguez says. "We've had to navigate the judicial system, the language system, the educational system in so many different ways. That speaks a lot about the resilience of our community."
For undocumented crime victims, the fight for permanent residency is more than a legal process. It’s a test of survival.
If you or a loved one is in need of help, these Milwaukee-area resources are available for you. You can also reach the National Domestic Violence hotline at 800-799-SAFE.
- UMOS Latina Resource Center crisis line: (414) 389-6510
- Sojourner Family Peace Center crisis line: (414) 933-2722
- The Women's Center (Waukesha) crisis line: (262) 542-3828
- Catholic Charities refugee and immigration services
- Centro Legal Wisconsin
- The Alma Center
- Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers
- Aurora Health Care Healing & advocacy services crisis line: 414-219-5555
