“Do You See How Much I’m Suffering Here?” Abuse Against Transgender Women in US Immigration Detention

"Do you see how much I’m suffering here? Do you think anyone deserves to be punished like this? … Sometimes I get anxious. … I thought about killing myself once, but then I regretted it and told myself I wasn’t going to do it. I said, ‘Lord, you gave me my life, why am I going to take it away?’ It’s not His fault they have me suffering here like this."[5] At any given time, the United States holds scores of transgender women in immigration detention.

Trans Queer Libertion Movement TQLM Familia
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Familia, Trans Queer Liberation Movment (TQLM), Transgender Law Center and Human Rights Watch collaborated on a report to highlight the abuses trans women are facing inside immigration detention centers. The report was released March 23, 2016 and we're excited to share it with you as we know it will spark a larger conversation about the inhumane treatment trans women and all other immigrants face inside detention centers everyday...

At any given time, the United States holds scores of transgender women in immigration detention, including many who have fled to the US seeking protection from torture, sexual violence, and other forms of persecution in their home countries related to their gender identity or gender expression.

Once they arrive, the women are locked up for months or even years at a time in jails or prison-like detention centers as they wait for a court to adjudicate their asylum claims, or to be deported for civil immigration violations. While in detention, many experience sexual assault and other forms of abuse and ill-treatment, including denial of access to necessary medical care.

Immigration detention can be a difficult experience for anyone. But it is often particularly harmful for transgender women due to the abuse they have previously endured. Many are traumatized by extended placements in solitary confinement and other physically isolated settings—a practice that authorities often justify as a step to protect them from other forms of abuse in detention. Some are also denied prompt and adequate access to necessary medical care, including hormone replacement therapy and HIV-related care, or have been denied access to that care altogether.

Dozens of transgender women, including asylum seekers, who are locked up in jails or prison-like immigration detention centers across the United States, have been subjected to sexual assault and ill-treatment, while others are held in indefinite solitary confinement.

Based on 28 interviews with transgender women—most of them from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—held or being held in US immigration detention between 2011 and 2015, this report details the abuses that transgender women suffer in immigration detention and the US government’s inadequate efforts to address them.

As of February 2016, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency responsible for overseeing immigration detention, claimed it did not know how many transgender women were in immigration detention across the US, let alone where and under what conditions they are being held.[6] However, ICE officials estimate that there are approximately 65 transgender women in detention on any given day among a nationally detained population of approximately 30,000 migrants and asylum seekers.[7] A December 2015 investigation by Univision quoted ICE officials as saying there were 36 transgender women held in a segregated unit at the Santa Ana City Jail in Santa Ana, California—where a large proportion of all transgender women in immigration detention were held at time of writing—and 20 held in other detention facilities throughout the US at that time.[8]

Until recently, transgender women in immigration detention were routinely held in men’s detention facilities, where many have been sexually assaulted and routinely harassed by male detainees and guards—the same kinds of abuses that drive many transgender women to flee their home countries in the first place.[9]

In early 2016, the US government appeared to move away from holding transgender women in men’s facilities and began transferring many of them to a segregated unit at the Santa Ana City Jail that exclusively houses transgender women. However, at time of writing, ICE officials were unable to state whether the agency had abandoned the practice of housing transgender women with men, and they had not announced any concrete plans to do so. Under ICE policy, immigration officials may still elect to house transgender women in men’s facilities—placing them at exceptionally high risk of sexual assault and other kinds of trauma and abuse. Others may be kept indefinitely in conditions of isolation simply because authorities cannot or will not devise any safe and humane way to keep them in detention.

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Even within the segregated detention unit inside a city jail in Santa Ana, several transgender women said they are regularly subjected to humiliating and abusive strip searches by male guards; have not been able to access necessary medical services, including hormone replacement therapy, or have faced harmful interruptions to or restrictions to that care; and have endured unreasonable use of solitary confinement. It is important to emphasize that all of these problems exist in a detention setting that was created by the US government with the express purpose of detaining transgender women in a humane and culturally sensitive environment.

Human Rights Watch calls on the US government to:

  • Prioritize the development and expansion of alternatives to detention for transgender women and other non-citizens considered members of vulnerable populations, including those subject to mandatory custody.
  • Review and revise its policy on immigration detention of transgender women. Where such detentions are consistent with US and international law, develop and implement a clearly articulated strategy to house transgender women in safe and humane conditions that ensure respect for their human rights. Transgender women should never be held with men, or in prolonged solitary confinement.
  • Take immediate steps to investigate and halt abusive practices at the Santa Ana City Jail and ensure that transgender women held there are able to freely access necessary medical and mental health care services. If these problems cannot be promptly and comprehensively addressed, ICE should not continue to hold transgender women at the Santa Ana City Jail.
  • Monitor conditions in which transgender women are being held at other detention facilities, and ensure that these settings are free from abuse and respectful of their specific medical and mental health needs. If an alternative site is designated to hold transgender women in a segregated unit, ICE should articulate detailed and specific steps to ensure that abuses do not occur there and that transgender women are held in safe and humane conditions.

If the US government is unable or unwilling to take all of these steps, it should not hold transgender women in immigration detention at all.