More than 50 transgender and queer immigrants rallied in front of Immigration Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) headquarters in Washington D.C. May 27 demanding the release of LGBTQ immigrants from ICE detention centers. The demonstration was part of Operation Break the Cage—a multi-organizational effort to raise awareness of the horrendous psychological and physical abuses suffered by immigrant transgender women currently detained in ICE facilities, many who are ignored and completely isolated without the personal or legal resources to find help.
Calling itself the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the nation comprising 100,000 immigrant youth and allies from 26 states United We Dream's operation in partnership with the Washington D.C. based LGBT advocacy organization Casa Ruby and the nationally renowned Trans Women of Color Collective ( TWOCC ) intends to "expose ICE's human rights violations against the undocumented LGBTQ community."
Carlos Padilla is the National Coordinator for the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project of United We Dream. "The purpose [of the rally] was to demonstrate the human rights violations and the torture currently taking place against our community," he told Windy City Times. "We wanted to make sure that ICE leadership knows exactly what is happening in their facilities, that we are watching it and expecting it to change."
The 2013 Center for American Progress ( CAP ) report on LGBT immigrants in U.S. detention entitled Dignity Denied detailed "incidents of sexual assault, denial of adequate medical care, long-term solitary confinement, discrimination and abuse, and ineffective complaints and appeals processes. Other complaints have documented LGBT detainees being called names such as "faggot" by guards and being told to "walk like a man, not a gay man" and "act male." Furthermore, detainees are frequently housed with detainees of a gender with which they do not identify. This means that female transgender detainees are detained with men."
Windy City Times own series of reports published in January 2015 on LGBTQ immigration and those held in ICE facilities included the story of America—an LGBTQ woman who was assaulted by a fellow detainee while in ICE custody. "I started screaming and I called the guard," America said during an interview with her. "The guard showed up and he saw that I was tied to the bed and he started laughing and saying 'you guys are old enough. You can fix your own problems.' He turned around and walked away."
According to Padilla, Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson recently requested recommendations from advocacy organizations to address vulnerable populations in ICE detention such as LGBTQ individuals. "He's been asking for a better way of housing, treating and processing these populations," Padilla said.
On May 8, United We Dream alongside Immigration Equality, Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Immigrant Justice Center issued those recommendations.
At the top of the list was a simple request: let them go.
"The most humane and the least expensive way to keep LGBT immigrants safe from mistreatment in custody is to release them on parole," the document stated.
"There is no way adequate way of protecting or communities in detention centers," Padilla explained. "Even after ICE have tried to reform their systems, too many of our people have died in detention centers waiting for them to get it right. We can no longer wait. We want to break the cage because our communities and our lives are at risk with every single delay."
The recommendations stated that "ICE has the authority to release even arriving aliens for "urgent humanitarian reasons" or where it determines that release would create a "significant public benefit." The high probability that a person will be physically or sexually abused in detention creates an urgent humanitarian need. At the same time, releasing LGBT detainees creates a significant public benefit, limiting detention costs generally, and the legal, medical, and human costs associated with sexual abuse."
Speakers at the rally included National Director of the TWOCC Lourdes Ashley Hunter and Marichuy Leal Gamino—a transgender woman who was allegedly raped while spending over a year in an ICE detention facility in Arizona. The website #Not1More noted that Gamino was told by a guard to "deal with it."
The incident occurred less than two months after ICE Deputy Assistant Director Andrew Lorenzen-Strait told Windy City Times "We have made considerable efforts to ensure that—at any time during the ICE process of encountering, detaining or removing an individual who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender—[they receive] the utmost attention."
Padilla said that ICE had no response either to the issues raised at the May 27 rally or the recommendations issued to Johnson. "We expect them to give parole to LGBTQ immigrants until the court case comes up," Padilla noted. "Secretary Johnson has been attempting to work with the LGBTQ community through negotiations. But we're saying no more negotiations can take place because ICE is heading towards more prisons and detention centers."
Dignity Denied noted a congressional mandate requiring "ICE to hold 34,000 immigrants who may be subject to removal for violations of administrative immigration law in more than 250 detention facilities nationwide, including county and private jails."
"Detention centers cost tax payers over two billion dollars per year," Padilla said. "It's not in the public's best interest but it does benefit the for-profit detention system. People in our LGBTQ immigrant community are dying under barbaric conditions. They are being pushed into suicide. Victoria Arellano [a transgender woman] died of AIDS in 2007 in a detention center after she was denied her medication. Detention Centers are not the answer. There are other proven, more humane, more cost effective tactics."
Padilla stated that the May 27 rally is just the beginning of a "summer of discontent. We have negotiated with and tried to make sense of ICE. We've spoken with President Obama and he continues to believe that detention centers are the answer. Conversations ae getting us nowhere. It's time for us to challenge their power with the power in our community. We will continue to come back to [ICE] headquarters with bigger, louder and stronger crowds every time."
For more information on United We Dream visit unitedwedream.org .
For more information on the Trans Women of Color Collective visit www.twocc.us .
For more information on Casa Ruby visit: www.casaruby.org .
Also see: www.washingtonblade.com/2015/05/28/advocates-protest-ice-detention-policies/ .
From a press release at the link: www.notonemoredeportation.com/2015/05/28/lgbtqshutdown/ Activists block road outside transgender detention center
May 28, 2015 — Santa Ana, CA — Five LGBTQ and Immigrant rights leaders have taken over intersection of Flower and Civic Center, near the detention center in Santa Ana that holds transgender detainees, in a protest risking arrest to demand an immediate end to detention and deportation, starting with releasing undocumented transgender women.
After being questioned directly about the topic, Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton echoed the #Not1More LGBTQ Deportation campaign's demand to end the detention of transgender immigrants, saying, "I do not think we should put children and vulnerable people into detention facilities because I think they are at risk. Their physical and mental health are at risk."
Protest organizers today are saying 'If Clinton can promise it, President Obama can do it now.'
They cite the experience of formerly detained protest participants as well as recent reports exposing the epidemic of violence against undocumented Trans detainees under Immigration and Customs Enforcement's watch in detention centers around the country as a crisis that needs immediate action. Rogue practices on behalf of ICE include incarcerating Trans women at all male facilities where they are subject to sexual assault and harassment, denying them hormone medication, and through deportation that returns them to situations of likely violence that often spurred their original journey to the US for safety.
Isa Noyola, who is risking arrest, says: "For too long our communities have been experiencing oppression through its immigration system. With each presidential administration advocates rally and push for reform measures and some lose sight of the broader vision for liberation. We are here today to uplift these broader demands of liberation; an end to detention centers and the criminalization of our transgender, gender non-conforming and queer communities. Trans women today are at the frontlines and showing up for our communities because our lives are on the line."
