The religious medal she received after crossing from Guatemala into Mexico.

PROVIDENCE –– Maira Farfan Maldonado’s violent husband dominated her life in Guatemala. He broke her ankle and sent her to the hospital for eight days. On separate occasions, she said, he broke her skull, knocked out her teeth, kicked her while she was pregnant and set her possessions on fire. He rarely allowed her outside, and he threatened to kill her if she left him.

But in 2000, Farfan ran away and crossed the border illegally, leaving behind her mother and three children. Still, from thousands of miles away, her husband extorted her, threatening to harm the children if she did not regularly send money.

Farfan, who was among 31 janitors arrested during courthouse immigration raids last July, has now been granted asylum based on fear that her husband might kill her, or have her tracked down and killed if she returned home.

Such asylum is unusual, and controversial.

Andrea A. Saenz, a lawyer with the PAIR Project (Political Asylum/Immigration Representation) in Boston, represented Farfan at a Jan. 23 hearing. Saenz said medical records, a social worker’s testimony and letters stating Farfan’s husband had ties to former members of paramilitary organizations who could track her down, persuaded immigration Judge Francis L. Cramer that Farfan would be in peril if she were deported.

Saenz and co-counsel Heather Friedman also made the case that Guatemala has a demonstrated indifference to domestic violence. They presented reports by the State Department and international organizations documenting that there have been “very few convictions for violence against women in Guatemala,” and that “there is a societal attitude that this is the victim’s fault, or it’s a family matter.”

Farfan’s claim “was based on years of extreme domestic violence that she was fleeing in Guatemala. It’s an asylum that’s a little bit unusual, and you never know how it’s going to turn out,” said Saenz.

While many people think of asylum as politically or religiously based, “the asylum law allows anyone to seek protection if their government cannot protect them from persecution. And that would include, in this case, a country that has turned a blind eye to victims of domestic violence,” said Saenz.

“We were able to document how her country would not be able to protect her if she were not able to go to police, or if she tried to leave her husband, who had made a number of death threats against her.”

Farfan is now officially an “asylee” and she has applied for a work permit, to which her new status entitles her. In a year or two, Farfan will be able to apply for permanent residency, and a few years later, for citizenship.

“It’s great for her now. She’s completely legal. She can work, and there are a number of programs she’s eligible for –– English classes, job training –– to really start her life over,” said Saenz. “So that’s really great. Now she can really be a full member of society and she’s really excited about that.”

Farfan, interviewed in the basement apartment in Providence where she has been living since her arrest, was overcome by the judge’s decision.

“I started crying and being very thankful to God, that [the judge] allowed me to stay in this country,” Farfan said through an interpreter. “I feel very happy to see that they gave me asylum, so my being afraid ends.”

Farfan added, “After they send me all the documents to work, I’m going to start looking for a job. I’m hoping to work a lot.” She wants to learn English, and help people “who have the same problems as I did.”

FARFAN WAS WORKING as a janitor for Tri-State Enterprises, of North Providence, when she was arrested last July 15 by federal immigration agents, who raided six state courthouses where suspected illegal immigrants were working as janitors. Prior to that, she worked for Falcon Maintenance LLC. The two companies formerly contracted with the Rhode Island judiciary for janitorial services at state courthouses.

Immigration authorities charged Farfan with a civil violation of being in the country illegally. Cases against most of the others arrested are still pending.

During the interview in her apartment, Farfan said she suffered years of abuse as her husband kept her a virtual prisoner in Guatemala, allowing her outside only to sell food in the market while he kept watch, or go on occasional errands with her children.

In 1995, she said, “He broke my ankle, so they had to do an operation. … They told me they had to do surgery right away or I might lose my foot.” Screws hold it together.

That same year, “he broke my head open,” she said, when he dragged her by her hair from the bathroom to the bedroom. Drunk or sober, Farfan said, “He used to do the same. In one case, he punched me in my mouth — he hit me so bad that eventually, I had to get fake teeth.”

Farfan said she was reluctant to leave her children alone, “but one day I said, ‘No more.’ ” That was eight years ago. Farfan’s children were then 7, 13 and 17 years old.

Her mother borrowed $5,000 to pay a “coyote” — a smuggler — who led Farfan across the Mexican border.

“When I crossed into Mexico, I went to a cathedral. I thanked God and the Virgin because I was there. I asked God to protect us” during the border crossing into the United States. At the cathedral, she was given a key chain with a medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The chain has since broken off, but Farfan keeps the medal in her wallet: the only tangible reminder of her journey.

Farfan sent money home for years but does not know whether she will see her family again. Her two oldest children are married, but her youngest, a girl, lives with Farfan’s husband. Asked whether she has spoken with her daughter, Farfan shook her head and cried. She fights depression but tries to see herself as a survivor.

“My mother told me, she’d rather listen to me on the phone, than see me under the ground.”

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE-BASED asylum claims represent “a very unsettled area of the law,” says Karen Musalo, clinical professor of law and director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

“It’s all over the place, and part of the reason the decisions are all over the place is that some judges think there isn’t clear precedent telling them to go one way or the other. Some judges are denying [the claims], and some are granting them on very similar facts.”

Musalo represents Rodi Alvarado Pena, a Guatemalan woman and victim of extreme violence at the hands of her husband, a former soldier. The much-watched Alvarado case remains unresolved after years. Musalo was also lead attorney in a 1996 landmark case of a woman from Togo who fled female genital cutting. Musalo said that marked the first time the Bureau of Immigration Appeals ruled that a woman “could be granted asylum for violations of her human rights.”

While domestic violence is a problem in every country, “the difference is that in Guatemala, if you kill a woman, 99 times out of a 100 you’ll go free. That’s the rate of impunity,” said Musalo. “In the U.S., it’s nothing near that. You kill a woman in the United States, and chances are you’re going to get caught, prosecuted and go to jail.”

Musalo disputes critics who suggest that domestic violence-based asylum will “open the floodgates” to women from around the world.

“There really hasn’t been a floodgate in countries that accept women on basis of domestic violence,” such as Canada , she said. “There’s no evidence of a skyrocketing number of asylum claims. The second thing to say about that, is, that instead of worrying about the floodgates, one of the things the U.S. could do is use its foreign policy in a smart way,” to pressure the Guatemalan government, as well as governments of other countries, “to effectively end this impunity for violence against women.”

kziner@projo.com