Home > Projects > Protecting Immigrant Women and their Children from Violence and Family Separation

The Immigration Law Clinic of the Michigan State University College of Law will receive $456,200 spread over the next three years for our part in a project that has just received full funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Law Professors Veronica Thronson and David Thronson will be part of a three-person team coordinating national leadership and training for Protecting Immigrant Women and their Children from Violence and Family Separation, a project of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Program at American University. Through judicial trainings, resource tools, and expert technical assistance, judges and court staff will have timely access to information about the unique dynamics of domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault perpetrated against immigrant women and children, as well as the intersections of state laws with federal immigration law. The work spans six key states (with proposal outstanding to add two more) with established and growing immigrant communities in both urban and rural areas. Judicial training and subsequent technical assistance programs will include teams of community based partners and judges from each state, along with a core of judges on the national training team and support from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

You can learn more about the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Program here.

About RCGV

MSU’s Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence faculty and staff are dedicated to research and outreach initiatives related to ending and preventing gender-based violence and improving the community response to survivors. RCGV faculty are committed to mentoring the next generation of gender-based violence researchers by providing substantial educational and employment opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant and widespread social problem internationally, devastating adults, children, families and societies across the globe. It includes any form of harm that is both a consequence and cause of gender power inequities. It can be physical, psychological, sexual, economic, or sociocultural, and includes but is not limited to sexual abuse, rape, intimate partner abuse, incest, sexual harassment, stalking, femicide, trafficking, gendered hate crimes and dowry abuse. Gender-based violence intersects with race-based, class-based or religiously oppressive forms of abuse, and cross-cuts many other social problems (e.g., poverty, substance abuse, mental and physical health, crime).


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