Senators Olympia Snowe and Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, asked the U.S. attorney general on Tuesday to review a Board of Immigration ruling that the threat of genital mutilation is grounds for asylum, but those who have already fallen victim to it would not be eligible.

Snowe and Levin said in a statement that the ruling ignored "the real ongoing effects that victims of FGM are faced with for the remainder of their lives."

“The rationale behind the BIA’s decision fails to protect against this particularly heinous form of gender-based persecution and ignores the physical and psychological effects that harm that awaits women subjected to this horrifying practice in their home countries,” Snowe said in a statement. “Women who have fallen victim to FGM should not be forced to exist in an environment where they are vulnerable to further persecution.”

Snowe was approached by a group of academics who asked her to write the letter.

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