No Get Out Of Jail Free Card

For trans people one of our worst fears is being jailed. When that happens we are either put in to solitary confinement (which is usually used only as a punishment) for “our own protection” or we are locked in the general prison population where we are raped.

Advocates Rally Around Transgender Migrant Woman Detained In All-Male Facility
Huffington Post Latino Voices
By Roque Planas
Posted: 01/29/2015

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has refused to release a transgender migrant woman from detention in an all-male facility, even though advocates say she has a credible asylum claim and has faced abuse from guards and fellow detainees.

The case of Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, an asylum seeker detained in Florence, Arizona, has become a rallying point for immigrant rights groups and the LGBT community, with some advocates arguing that ICE should stop detaining transgender people altogether.

This is her second time here in the U.S. she crossed over a number of years earlier when she started to transition and was being attacked because of her gender identity. She was send back and lived in shelters in Mexico, but returned to the U.S. and at the boarder asked for asylum based on the of persecution from her gender identification.

She was placed in an all-male detention center, despite Department of Homeland Security regulations saying that ICE should take gender identification into account when assigning migrants to detention facilities. Advocates say that since being detained, Hernández-Polanco has been assaulted by another detainee, and that guards have groped her during routine pat-downs and referred to her using slurs like “it” and “woman with balls.”

ICE is ignoring the law! The Prison Rape Elimination Act has regulations to prevent exactly what ICE is doing,

Current regulations say that ICE should take the gender identification of transgender and intersex detainees into consideration when assigning them to a detention center.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is firmly committed to providing for the safety and welfare of those in custody,” ICE said in a statement. “ICE has a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of abusive or inappropriate behavior in its facilities and takes any allegations of such mistreatment very seriously.”

ICE is not alone in its refusal to follow the law, here in Connecticut Jane Doe is still being housed in solitary confinement at a juvenile boys prison facility by DCF (Department of Children and Families) even through it is in direct violation of the Connecticut non-discrimination law.