The female populations serviced by the Human Rights Project cannot return home without being at risk of immediate sexual violence, torture or death undocumented inmigrant women are an "at risk" population because gender-based persecution in their homeland is legally unprotected.

In the United States, the issue of women fleeing gender-based persecution in their home countries has been caught up in both legal and political debate resulting in many women with very compelling cases for asylum being denied and return to face their persecutors with no hope of defense and very little chance of survival.

Asylum is a legal form of protection that allows undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States of America; and eventually to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident. Under current law, people can be granted asylum if they can prove persecution based on race, religion, and national origin, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. However, undocumented immigrant women have become an undeserved population because gender is not explicity stated as a cause for asylum under the current immigration law.