EOIR PM 25-34 steers immigration judges away from gender-based asylum precedent

Policy Memorandum 25-34, "Conflicting Precedents of the Board of Immigration Appeals" (July 3, 2025), instructs that where BIA precedents conflict, "the earlier of the decisions in conflict is the one that controls," and offers "guidance" on how immigration judges "may approach" allegedly conflicting precedent on administrative closure and on protection claims based on domestic violence — in practice inviting IJs to disregard later precedent favorable to gender-based claims and to treat gender-motivated violence as a "personal matter" outside the protected grounds. Practitioner analyses (NIJC; the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies characterized it as an attempt to "undermine gender asylum") warn it will be used to summarily deny domestic-violence and other gender-based claims, a category that encompasses claims by transgender applicants.