Arely Westley, an undocumented transgender girl who grew up in New Orleans, spent six months in immigration detention in her youth. She didn’t need anybody else to should expertise the cruelty, confusion and isolation of detention.
After her launch, group organizers helped her discover secure housing, inspiring her to struggle for different trans migrants navigating the system alone. Westley met with trans detainees in immigration amenities throughout the state to attach them with attorneys, raised commissary funds and campaigned to close down amenities that had histories of abuse.
In 2024, she was honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Middle — just lately renamed the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Middle — for her work, incomes its annual human rights award. On the ceremony, Westley spoke about surviving human trafficking, in addition to her horrific experiences whereas being detained.
When Donald Trump returned to the White Home final 12 months after campaigning on a platform that denigrated trans folks and immigrants, Westley was working as a marketing campaign director at BreakOut!, a corporation serving to Black and Latinx trans youth. She was within the strategy of acquiring a particular visa for trafficking survivors and had obtained gender-affirming surgical procedures. Her residence was a spot the place she felt secure, and he or she could possibly be surrounded by her 10 canines, two cats, bunnies and chickens.
She wasn’t significantly anxious when she obtained a name final January from the New Orleans area workplace of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over the telephone, and in a textual content message reminder reviewed by HuffPost, Westley’s supervisory officer informed her they acknowledged her position as a group chief and wished to supply her extra lenient supervision. Westley had been granted an Order of Supervision in 2024, which capabilities equally to probation and allowed her to reside within the U.S. whereas awaiting ultimate deportation orders and an replace on her visa — shortly after successful her award.
However when Westley reported to the workplace, brokers handcuffed her. Over the following a number of months, she was detained at a Louisiana facility the place she says she was denied entry to medical care, spent lengthy stretches in solitary confinement and was subjected to verbal abuse and transphobic harassment. She stated medical personnel on the facility informed her they didn’t know the right way to look after her, and he or she remains to be recovering from a number of infections that went untreated throughout her detention.
Sarah Decker, a senior employees legal professional with the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Middle and Westley’s lawyer, stated folks dwelling below an Order of Supervision had been “very straightforward targets” in the course of the early days of the Trump administration’s deportation marketing campaign. (Westley filed — and lost — a case difficult ICE’s use of “ruses” to get her to return to the New Orleans area workplace.)
Westley, now 33, was born in Honduras, however in November, a choose ordered her to be despatched to Mexico as an alternative as a result of her residence nation is so harmful for trans folks. She hardly knew anybody when she arrived in Mexico.
“I symbolize every part that Trump hates,” Westley stated over the telephone. “I’m an immigrant, I’m a trans particular person and I’m an activist. I believe I used to be the right goal for his administration.”
Illustration: Grace Russell for HuffPost
The Trump administration has made it extra harmful to be a trans immigrant in ICE custody over the previous 12 months. Although trans migrants have traditionally confronted discrimination in detention, the president’s guarantees of mass deportation and rolling again trans folks’s fundamental rights have collided with brutal pressure.
Over the previous six months, HuffPost spoke with a couple of dozen folks — together with detainees, attorneys and advocates — and reviewed over 1,000 pages of courtroom paperwork, medical data and emails to uncover new ranges of cruelty for trans migrants. Three stated they had been subjected to severe medical neglect, harassment and solitary confinement for weeks at a time — which the United Nations considers to be a form of torture. All stated they felt they had been uniquely focused for abuse for being transgender.
“The Trump administration is taking a really aggressive and violent method towards immigrants — and that has escalated. We are able to’t actually quantify that due to the dearth of transparency, however we all know that Trump is concentrating on migrants and trans people, and that’s emboldening bigots all over the place,” stated Dale Melchert, a senior employees legal professional for the Transgender Legislation Middle, a nonprofit regulation agency.
It’s tough to completely account for the abuses trans immigrants face below Trump. ICE abruptly stopped providing data on the variety of transgender folks held in detention, although Congress requires the company to publish these statistics. Advocates had been beforehand allowed extra entry to detention facilities the place they may go to trans detainees and repeatedly meet with an LGBTQ+ liaison inside ICE to boost considerations. However that entry has been curtailed in Trump’s second time period, and three Department of Homeland Security agencies tasked with immigration oversight have been shuttered.
“Now we solely hear concerning the hurt after the actual fact,” Isa Noyola, the director of the Border Butterflies Venture, a bunch that assists LGBTQ+ asylum seekers on the U.S. southern border, informed HuffPost. “We’ll by no means know the depths of the hurt taking place inside detention facilities.”
Folks in ICE detention could be held for weeks, months or years, relying on their immigration standing, authorized proceedings and prison historical past. Detention facilities should not speculated to be punitive, and facility requirements point out detainees ought to have entry to authorized illustration and medical care.
At the beginning of his second time period, Trump dismantled the few safeguards that had been established below President Barack Obama — and continued by President Joe Biden — to guard LGBTQ+ immigrants from sexual assault and medical neglect in detention. On his first day in workplace, Trump signed an government order that declared intercourse to be binary and immutable, and directed immigration detention facilities to deal with folks based mostly on their intercourse assigned at delivery, irrespective of the gender marker on their documentation.
DHS, which oversees ICE, eliminated all point out of trans folks from its detention standards and changed any references to gender with references to organic intercourse. ICE deleted an Obama-era memo concerning transgender care from its web site, which established finest practices for medical care, housing, clothes and bogs. An investigation by the workplace of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) discovered over 1,000 reports of human rights abuses over the previous 12 months, together with 206 experiences of medical neglect.
HuffPost has recognized a minimum of 10 contracts between ICE and personal jail corporations which have eliminated the trans care necessities, citing Trump’s government order on intercourse. ICE has spent millions outsourcing immigrant detention to non-public jail corporations comparable to CoreCivic and GEO Group, which have each been accused of mistreating transgender detainees.
“We’ll by no means know the depths of the hurt taking place inside detention facilities.”
– Isa Noyola, director of the Border Butterflies Venture
Liza Doubossarskaia, a employees legal professional at Immigration Equality, an LGBTQ+ immigration rights group, stated it has turn into harder for trans asylum-seekers particularly to discover attorneys and win their circumstances since Trump reentered workplace.
She spoke about one trans girl who was detained by ICE whereas within the hospital receiving surgical procedure. Doubossarskaia stated brokers made enjoyable of her as a result of she’d misplaced tooth in a automotive accident. The lady has since been deported to a rustic in Latin America that’s hostile to trans folks, and Doubossarskaia has misplaced contact together with her.
“Issues had been already unhealthy, however usually they’re getting worse with out the actually sturdy protections,” Doubossarskaia stated.
As ICE’s funds expands, so has the scope of its surveillance and information assortment actions, together with these involving trans folks. DHS proposed a rule final 12 months that may require immigrants to submit DNA testing to show their “organic intercourse” with a view to obtain sure immigration advantages.
Illustration: Grace Russell for HuffPost
Throughout the first few weeks of Westley’s detention on the all-female South Louisiana ICE Processing Middle (SLIPC) in Basile, her well being started to say no.
She developed a painful cough that she couldn’t shake after being denied every day medicine and dietary supplements she wanted to handle a continual sickness, Decker, her lawyer, wrote in emails to ICE on the time. Westley was additionally not given her estrogen hormone remedy, although her physique not produced intercourse hormones by itself. Being denied hormone remedy, particularly after surgical procedures to cease naturally produced intercourse hormones, may cause a spread of well being points, together with extreme gender dysphoria, nervousness, despair, cognitive issues and adjustments in bone density.
By Might, Westley developed what appeared like an an infection on the website of her vaginoplasty, a surgical procedure she had had the 12 months earlier than to assemble a vagina. As a part of the post-operative care, Westley wanted to insert dilators a minimum of twice weekly. She stated she was denied entry to her dilators in the course of the first month; as soon as employees lastly gave her these instruments, Westley was shuttled to solitary confinement to carry out the dilations in a extra sterile and personal setting. Spending any period of time alone in a cell made Westley really feel claustrophobic. Her chest tightened and he or she felt like she couldn’t breathe, making the dilation course of much more uncomfortable.
At one level, she remembers going to make use of the restroom and seeing her underwear stuffed with discharge. She felt excessive ache. Medical employees informed her they had been “not outfitted to deal with her medical wants and don’t have any understanding of post-vaginoplasty medical care,” in line with an e-mail Decker despatched to the heads of ICE’s area workplace in New Orleans. Decker harassed that the discharge could possibly be the symptom of a “probably life-threatening an infection.”
Westley stated a health care provider refused to deal with her however requested her uncomfortable questions on her vaginoplasty. In June, a unique physician referred Westley to an exterior gynecologist, a transgender care supplier, and an oncologist to comply with up on a colon most cancers screening she’d had beforehand, in line with Decker’s emails. However by the point she was deported in November, Westley stated, she had not been taken to any of her exterior medical appointments.
ICE has not paid any of its third-party medical care suppliers since October, and the company famous it is not going to start processing claims till April of this 12 months. The company’s failure to pay medical payments has induced some medical suppliers to cease caring for folks in detention, Popular Information first reported, citing an unnamed supply. One other administration supply informed CBS News Atlanta that this has induced some detainees to be denied important medical remedy.
With fewer suppliers and a record number of detainees, medical neglect at detention facilities is anticipated to worsen. Immigration advocates fear that, for trans immigrants, who might require extra advanced and constant well being care, that neglect could possibly be deadly.
In a press release to HuffPost, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin didn’t reply particular questions concerning the allegations of trans detainees, however she broadly denied claims of medical neglect in ICE custody. “That is one of the best healthcare than many aliens have obtained of their total lives,” she stated. Nonetheless, she acknowledged that detainees should not given hormone remedy. “We’re NOT losing U.S. taxpayer {dollars} to offer hormone remedy to unlawful aliens in search of to alter their intercourse,” she stated.
Hundreds of miles away from SLIPC, in Arizona, a 37-year-old trans girl from Iran referred to as Melissa confronted practically equivalent boundaries to medical look after issues on account of her vaginoplasty, which she had obtained greater than a decade earlier. (Melissa is being recognized by a pseudonym to guard her privateness.)
Whereas in detention at an Arizona detention facility, Melissa stated she skilled vaginal bleeding and discharge for 2 months and didn’t obtain her hormone remedy for 4 months. Detention facility employees acknowledged that she would “profit from getting transferred to a facility that gives these companies,” in line with medical data reviewed by HuffPost. However Melissa was put into medical isolation, a type of solitary confinement, twice when she tried to advocate for care, in line with her lawyer, Sahar Jalili Pawelski.
ICE brokers poked enjoyable at her dilation instruments and threw away her clothes, Melissa stated. She was given hydroxyzine, an antihistamine usually used to manage nervousness and insomnia; she took it, not understanding what it was or how a lot it will make her sleep.
“I used to be so out of it, I used to be simply sleeping 24/7. Typically I didn’t know if it was daylight or nighttime,” Melissa informed HuffPost in Farsi. (Jalili Pawelski translated.)
Melissa had waited years to acquire asylum in the USA, after the so-called “Muslim ban” throughout Trump’s first time period delayed her plans. 5 days after Trump was inaugurated for a second time, Melissa was lastly on the U.S. border. She had left Iran after being crushed by police and abused by transphobic relations.
As she waited in line on the processing heart, she seen the officers signaling her means and yelling phrases in English that she didn’t perceive.
“They’re saying you must go to the opposite line as a result of they’re undecided in case you’re male or feminine,” one girl translated into Farsi. “They’re suspicious of your brow.”
At first, Melissa was confused. Then she felt humiliated and began to cry. Her delivery certificates stated “feminine,” and he or she had obtained gender-affirming surgical procedures whereas nonetheless in Iran. However an immigration official had deemed her brow to be too masculine, which meant she was pulled apart and put in solitary detention.
Illustration: Grace Russell for HuffPost
Solitary confinement is widely used throughout the immigration detention system. Typically trans persons are positioned in solitary to “protect” them from different folks in detention, but it surely may also be used as punishment.
Melissa was later transferred to a different facility, Otay Mesa in California, the place she was once more positioned in solitary confinement. Three days into her keep, she stated she was taken to a room with facility officers who started to interrogate her: Had she ever raped a baby? Did she need to be with males or ladies? Did she need to harm any person?
“Of the 1,100 folks I’ve labored with in detention amenities, that is the primary time I’m listening to one thing like this. It’s by no means been this invasive or this current,” Jalili Pawelski stated.
“I really feel like her mere presence was making them uncomfortable,” she added.
Melissa has since gained her asylum case and is staying with a bunch household in New Mexico. However DHS nonetheless hasn’t granted her an I-94, a kind that proves her skill to remain within the nation. With out it, Melissa can not work or get a driver’s license.
“I don’t know the place to go, I don’t know what to do. From stress, I’m getting extra destroyed daily,” she informed HuffPost.
Luis Renteria-Gonzalez, a 37-year-old transgender man, alleged he was sexually harassed and abused whereas in detention at SLIPC in Louisiana. He was pressured to work in an “off the books” labor program on the facility, in line with a federal declare filed by attorneys on the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Middle, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, and the Nationwide Immigration Venture.
Between 2023 and 2025, Renteria-Gonzalez stated employees recruited him to be a part of a late-night work program. An assistant warden pressured him to carry out laborious guide labor with out protecting gear. As soon as, he stated, he used an industrial-grade chemical to strip facility flooring, and it burned by way of his footwear and onto his toes. He stated the warden picked on him and different trans males, saying, “You assume you’re a person? You’re going to work like a person.”
After Renteria-Gonzalez shared his experiences with The Guardian final 12 months, he stated he skilled retaliation: He was put into solitary confinement for 40 days and didn’t obtain enough medical care. Whereas in solitary, he stated, he had issue having access to the telephones, talking along with his youngsters, mom and lawyer for just a few minutes at a time.
“It’s not straightforward in right here, . It’s by no means been straightforward, however below this administration, I really feel like issues are simply that a lot harder for us,” Renteria-Gonzalez stated, talking from SLIPC.
“I really feel like lots of the phrases that Trump has used to check with folks like us has just about inspired officers to deal with us in any kind of means and don’t have any respect for folks like us,” he stated.
Renteria-Gonzalez has since been deported to Mexico, a rustic he barely is aware of. He was delivered to the USA by his household when he was 5 years previous.
The trans migrants all stated they’re nonetheless struggling to deal with the trauma they skilled.
After a bacterial an infection she had contracted whereas in detention ravaged her toes, Westley stated she needed to get six of her toenails eliminated by a health care provider in Mexico. She remains to be recovering from the vaginal an infection, which has made it tough for her to dilate, and he or she worries that her vaginal canal has partially closed and won’t operate correctly once more.
Distant from her buddies, her boyfriend and her mother in New Orleans, Westley is navigating life in a brand new nation. She stated she largely stays inside a rental property and will get meals delivered, as she’s anxious about her security in a metropolis recognized for prime ranges of violence in opposition to trans folks. Westley hopes to return to the USA, however she is aware of it might take a very long time. Within the meantime, she’s persevering with her advocacy work, drawing up plans to create a type of sanctuary residence to assist trans migrants who get deported to Mexico.
“I FaceTime my animals daily,” she added. “That’s the factor that’s maintaining me sturdy.”
Joseph Heller contributed translation for this story.
