An immigration judicial board has decided to grant asylum to women who are victims of domestic abuse. The decision could open the gates for many new cases to deter deportation by using it.

The case concerns a Guatemalan immigrant named Aminta Cifuentes who immigrated illegally in 2005 with her children, according to the Telegraph. Cifuentes had been brutally abused by her husband who beat her, raped her and burned her breasts with paint thinner.

Though she attempted to contact the Guatemalan police, they told her they do not interfere in marital disputes, and her husband found her when she ran away to her parents' home. Therefore, she decided to escape to the U.S.

The Board of Immigration Appeals decided on Tuesday that Cifuentes could stay in the country after the U.S. government gave the woman asylum status, according to The New York Times. Cifuentes also proved to the judges that she had attempted to ameliorate her situation in Guatemala by going to the police, but they did not act.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, asylum seekers need "protection because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group and political opinion."

Advocates have argued that battered women fall into the social group category. But judges have failed to recognize this, and since 1995, there have been failed attempts to clarify what groups qualify.

Now women will be part of that group thanks to the ruling.

"Women who have suffered violence in these cases can now rely on the legal principles established in this ruling," said Karen Musalo, a law professor and an adviser to Ms. Cifuentes. "A judge can no longer say, 'I believe these horrible things happened to you but this is just a criminal act, this is not persecution.' "

Around 300 cases of domestic abuse are waiting to be heard by the same appeals board, reports the San Francisco Gate. The new decision could also put pressure on the administration as the government continues to deal with the influx of undocumented migrants from Central America crossing into the U.S.