Transgender dies in custody
ALBUQUERQUE: The death of a transgender woman while in the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has prompted advocates to demand that LGBTQ migrant detainees be freed until their cases are heard.
The outcry came even as President Donald Trump and others increasingly criticise the practice known as “catch and release” in which migrants are freed while subject to deportation.
Federal officials are awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine what caused the death of the 33-year-old Honduran migrant last Friday at an Albuquerque hospital. The woman was admitted after showing symptoms of pneumonia, dehydration and complications associated with HIV.
Activists identified the migrant as Roxana Hernandez and said she was part of a highly publicised caravan of Central American asylum seekers who travelled through Mexico to the US border at San Diego last month. The effort drew the attention of Mr Trump, who tweeted that they shouldn’t be allowed to enter the US
Authorities listed the woman’s name as Jeffry Hernandez when she was taken into custody in San Diego. She was later transferred to El Paso, Texas, and then to a detention centre in New Mexico where she was housed in the transgender unit.
She was the sixth detainee to die in ICE custody since October 2017.
Some 19 members of Congress on Wednesday sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen expressing concerns about how LBGTQ migrants are housed and whether they are protected from abuse.
“These individuals, particularly transgender women, are extremely vulnerable to abuse, including sexual assault, while in custody,” said the letter signed by US Rep. Kathleen M. Rice, a Democrat from New York, and 18 other lawmakers.