Roxana Hernández, a 33-year-old transgender woman originally from Honduras, has become the sixth person to die while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention this fiscal year. According to Buzzfeed’s Adolfo Flores, Hernández was a part of the so-called “caravan” of Central American asylum seekers earlier this year, petitioning for admission at the U.S/Mexico border on May 9.
“When she presented [herself at the port of entry] she was smiling [because] the government finally allowed her to seek asylum,” Pueblo Sin Frontera’s Nakai Flotte told Splinter. But immigrant detainees, especially LGBTQ people, face dire conditions in immigration custody. “The group said she was first detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in holding cells known as ‘iceboxes’ because of how cold they are”:
In addition to being cold, Pueblo Sin Fronteras said, Hernandez lacked adequate food and medical care and was held in a cell where the lights were turned on 24 hours a day. On May 16, she was then taken to a transgender unit at the Cibola County Correctional Center, a federal prison facility in Milan, New Mexico, that contracts with ICE.
The following day Hernandez was admitted to Cibola General Hospital and was later transferred via air ambulance to Albuquerque's Lovelace Medical Center, where she remained in the intensive care unit until she died on May 25. The preliminary cause of death was cardiac arrest, according to ICE.
Hernández had fled anti-transgender violence in Honduras, saying that she was raped by gang members, and as a result of the assault, contracted HIV. "We don't want you in this neighborhood, you fucking faggot,” they told her. "I wanted to stay in Honduras but I couldn't," she later said. "They kill trans people in Honduras. I'm scared of that." Hernández fled to the U.S. to save her life, hoping she could find refuge here. Instead, that refuge is where she ended up losing her life, and in the custody of the unleashed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
It’s a fact that detained immigrants “are often mistreated by ICE agents and forced to reside in deplorable conditions with their rights being habitually and systemically violated.” Vulnerable populations, like transgender people, face additional abuses. “Before being deported, immigrants would likely spend time in a DHS detention facility. The horrific abuse that LGBTQ immigrants face in detention facilities is well-documented”:
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, nonheterosexual people are more than twice as likely as the general population to be sexually assaulted while in confinement. From 2009 to 2013, 1 in 5 substantiated allegations of sexual assault in ICE detention facilities had a transgender victim. In addition to sexual assault, LGBTQ people in detention face verbal and physical abuse; prolonged solitary confinement; and the withholding of critical health care needs, such as hormone therapy or HIV medication.
“Paired with the abuse we know transgender people regularly suffer in ICE detention,” said Isa Noyola of the Transgender Law Center, “the death of Ms. Hernández sends the message that transgender people are disposable and do not deserve dignity, safety, or even life”:
“It is alarming that transgender communities continue to face transphobic violence outside and inside of detention walls,” says Flor Bermudez, Legal Director at Transgender Law Center. “This is why TLC’s Trans Immigrant Defense Effort (TIDE) has organized to demand the liberation of transgender women from detention and the end of all detention and deportations. ICE has shown time and again it is incapable of protecting transgender women in detention. Transgender people should not be detained by ICE, at all.”
Even in death, ICE felt the need to strip her of her dignity by using her former first name in the press release and then stating her criminal history, adding to the mistreatment trans detainees already face. The conditions leading to her death remain unclear, with ICE stating she “was admitted to Cibola General Hospital with symptoms of pneumonia, dehydration and complications associated with HIV,” but no mention if she was receiving the care she needed before she was transferred.
“At a time when we are grieving the murders of transgender women of color,” said Anandrea Molina of Latina de Trans en Texas, “and the murder of 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzalez by Border Patrol at the Texas-Mexico border, it is unconscionable that a transgender woman would die in the hands of ICE at the Cibola trans pod in immigration detention. The community, now more than ever, needs to organize to protect our most vulnerable, in particular transgender immigrant women who are surrounded by violence on a daily basis.”
“We honor her life by demanding that all trans women needing medication or whose lives at risk while in detention be released as soon as possible,” said Diversidad Sin Fronteras in a Facebook post. “We love you Roxanna and we will miss you tremendously. “