Johana Leon, a 25-year-old transgender asylum-seeker from El Salvador, has died after being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for weeks, The Washington Post reports. Diversidad Sin Fronteras, an LGBTQ migrant advocacy group that first reported her death, said that Leon had waited for nearly three months to be able to present herself at a port of entry in Texas. She passed her initial asylum screening, but was still being kept in a private detention facility in New Mexico.
Advocates have already described "unconscionable conditions" at the Otero County Processing Center, in particular for LGBTQ migrants. This appears to have been the case for her: Diversidad Sin Fronteras said that Leon, who was a certified nurse, knew something was wrong. Another advocate told The Washington Post “that others had requested that she be given intravenous fluids but that staff said they couldn’t administer that kind of treatment.” She was administered an HIV test, which came back positive.
When she reportedly began complaining of chest pains and at one point appeared to fall unconscious, it was only then that she was finally taken from the private detention facility to Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, and it was only then that ICE finally released her from custody, something that should have happened after she passed her interview. She died there on June 1—the first day of Pride Month celebrations in the U.S.
“For weeks,” Johana “pleaded for medical help,” Diversidad Sin Fronteras told Rebekah Entralgo of Think Progress, who reports Leon was “referring to health problems caused by complications with HIV/AIDS.” ICE, in turn blamed her for her own death, with ICE official Corey Price claiming in a statement “this is yet another unfortunate example of an individual who illegally enters the United States with an untreated, unscreened medical condition.”
ICE is lying. Asylum is legal immigration, and Johana waited for weeks to present herself at a port of entry, as administration officials have repeatedly asked asylum-seekers to do. “You are not breaking the law by seeking asylum at a port of entry,” ousted Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen said last year. Advocates are continuing to pledge to fight for justice for not just Johana, but for all vulnerable migrant who continue to be jailed in inhumane—and ultimately deadly—conditions.
Johana’s death is the second death of a transgender asylum-seeker after going into ICE custody since last year. In fact, her death came just days after the one-year anniversary of Roxsana Hernández’s death in intensive care at Albuquerque's Lovelace Medical Center last year. Prior to going into ICE custody, Roxsana had been held for nearly a week in deplorable cells that are nicknamed “hieleras,” or “iceboxes” for freezing cold temperatures.
“Devastated and outraged, but not surprised,” the Transgender Law Center said in a statement. “ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and all the agencies and companies responsible for Roxsana’s death have only grown bolder in their cruelty, inhumanity, and lawlessness. These deaths are a direct result of U.S. government policy, and will continue unless we force dramatic change.” Remember Roxsana Hernández. Remember Johana Medina Leon.