US Considers More Options For Detaining Transgender Migrants

“We realized there was a need,” said Corey Price, field office director of the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.

During the first-ever tour for journalists of Unit 900, Price told The Associated Press and other media outlets Wednesday that the agency had nothing to hide, though interviews and conversations with detainees were not allowed.

Some of the detainees leaned against the shaded wall of the recreation yard, waiting to resume their game after breaking for the tour. Some waved and bid farewell in Spanish as the group moved on. Others were reading in the library.

Price said officials wanted to show what it’s like for the women inside the unit, where detainees can move around freely for most of the day and the walls are painted light blue rather than white.

Bulletin boards list the lunch menu and activities such as legal clinics and prayer services. There are also reminders that beds must be made by 9 a.m.

While the doors have been removed from individual rooms in the sleeping area, privacy shades are stretched across the bars, and placards remind male staffers to announce their presence before they step into the rooms.

Protests and calls for an investigation into the treatment of transgender detainees came last year with the in-custody death of Roxsana Hernandez, a 33-year-old Honduran transgender woman. She died of a rare disorder that developed quickly because of AIDS, according to an autopsy report made public in April.

The criticism ramped up again following the recent death of a second transgender woman who was held at a different detention center in New Mexico. Johana Medina Leon died at an El Paso, Texas, hospital just days after being released from custody. Advocates say her death was another example of poor care and treatment that transgender detainees get in custody.

Lawyers for Medina Leon’s family threatened this week to sue, saying the 25-year-old migrant from El Salvador should have been paroled while her asylum case was pending.

Federal officials have declined to comment on the pending litigation but said “lack of comment should not be construed as agreement with or stipulation to any of the allegations.”

The New York-based advocacy group Immigration Equality is among those questioning the detention of transgender migrants, suggesting they should be eligible for immediate release given the additional threats they face and the specialized medical care that many require, such as hormone therapy or treatment for HIV infections.

The group toured Unit 900 last summer and issued a report in December that included more than a dozen recommendations — from speeding up the time it takes for detainees to access HIV services to increasing medical staff and limiting the use of segregation for individual detainees.