Trans detainees file complaint detailing extreme abuse & neglect at ICE facility

The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, American Immigration Council, and The National Immigration Project filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of transgender and nonbinary individuals detained at Colorado’s Aurora Contract Detention Facility under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There, they face harassment, discrimination, and mistreatment.

The complaint described experiences of medical neglect, dehumanizing treatment, inadequate access to essential mental health and medical care, and more.

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One detainee, Charlotte, believed transferring to the Aurora facility would be better than another ICE detention center in Georgia. She had been told that there would be better access to gender-affirming care at Aurora, but in reality, she and other transgender women detainees are locked in their dorms for 23, sometimes 24, hours a day, according to a press release from the American Immigration Council.

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“I thought they’d take care of us, give us more freedom, recognize that we have suffered the most, we are the most vulnerable,” Charlotte said in a statement. “We came from our countries being horribly treated and we get here and they treat us horribly.”

“People break. They sign their deportations after being here too long because they can’t take this treatment,” said Victoria, another detainee at Aurora. “They don’t want to keep fighting their cases here because the system is so bad. I think it is intentionally bad here. It is a way to get people to give up on themselves.”

The complaint detailed Victoria’s stress and anxiety over the isolation she has experienced, all of which she believes have exacerbated her high blood pressure. She has also been waiting two years to see a doctor for glasses and has long been wearing the wrong prescription.

Ann Garcia, staff attorney at the National Immigration Project, said in the press release, “The traumatic experiences detailed in this complaint make clear that ICE is incapable of safely and humanely incarcerating transgender and nonbinary people. Women at the Aurora facility are being abused, and it’s clear ICE is not able to keep them safe or ensure their well-being — and so, for that reason, they should be released.”

She went on to criticize the entire immigration system. “Ultimately, however, we know the abuse and mistreatment documented in this complaint are emblematic of a detention system that is inherently inhumane and flawed beyond repair, and we will continue fighting to end this cruel and harmful system.”

Laura Lunn, Director of Advocacy & Litigation at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, explained in a statement that ICE created a “trans pod” at the Aurora location, “which is promoted as the premier place to be detained in the country for people who are transgender and nonbinary.”

But the allegations, of course, significantly call that claim into question.

“This complaint reveals the systemic flaws with this model,” Lunn said, “which inflicts further harm and cruelty on people who have already faced profound mistreatment during their lives due to their gender identities and expression of themselves.”

While the trans and nonbinary detainees can speak to other people in their rooms, the complaint says they are unable to communicate with others in the trans pod — a rule that does not apply to others in the facility. The detainees also claim they are often banned from going outside, with one trans woman saying she was held inside for eight months.

Rebekah Wolf, senior advocacy strategist at the American Immigration Council said, “ICE needs to permanently end keeping trans and non-binary people in detention, because the agency clearly cannot guarantee basic standards of care.”

Built upon the long-running pattern of discrimination that transgender and nonbinary individuals have reported while held at the Aurora facility, the complaint details traumatic experiences of neglect and abuse. Much of it echoes more than 10 years’ worth of detailed complaints filed by transgender and nonbinary persons.

The complaint says, for example, that one woman, Elsa, has dealt with inordinate challenges in obtaining health care and “fears dying at the Aurora facility due to medical neglect.”

And a trans and nonbinary detainee, Omar, said they were told if they began hormone replacement therapy they’d be placed in solitary confinement since there is no nonbinary or trans men’s housing unit at the facility.

“This is so, despite other trans men having been detained in Aurora in the past, so Omar is very likely receiving misinformation that is preventing them from accessing the treatment they require,” the complaint says.

Like Omar, several of the complainants detailed issues with obtaining gender-affirming care.