Lawyers with the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have written authorities in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to address “grave concerns” they have after interviewing 12 gay men and transgender women, all undocumented immigrants, detained in the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico.
The letter alleges that guards in Otero, a private detention center operated by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), have been threatening gay and trans inmates with solitary confinement and placement with cisgender, heterosexual men if they complain. The latter contributes to their social isolation and abuse, the ACLU says.
The alleged abuses include guards “barking” transphobic commands like “Walk like a man!” and “You better sit like a man,” forcing trans women to sleep in cells and shower with men who sexually harass and threaten them; subjecting gay and trans inmates to frequent pat-downs several times a day; allowing other inmates to regularly insult them with slurs in the cafeteria; denying hormone replacement therapy, refusing medical treatment and ignoring requests for physical and mental healthcare.
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According to NBC News, “A news release accompanying the letter said a 20-year-old gay man from Honduras was repeatedly groped when he was detained at Otero and asked to perform sexual favors in exchange for food… [and] guards allegedly interrupted showers and offered to help transgender women bathe.”
The ACLU also says that guards are putting these inmates in prolonged solitary confinement without explaining why, properly documenting it or periodically reviewing the decision like they’re supposed to.
Mistreatment of gay and trans inmates for expressing their identities is a violation of the First Amendment, the ACLU says. Furthermore, ICE policies dictated during the Obama era state that trans people on hormone replacement therapy should have continued access to it. ICE policies also state that detainees are allowed to request medical and mental healthcare — on a daily basis, if need be — and deserve a prompt response while in detainment.
The ACLU has asked for the facility’s guards and management to undergo training regarding these issues and their obligations to prevent sexual violence in accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), a 2003 law signed by George W. Bush. However, PREA advocates have long said “there aren’t adequate mechanisms to enforce the reforms or evaluate prison compliance,” according to the Dallas Voice.
Kangol
Is anyone surprised that these immigrants and refugees are being abused under this monstrous administration? They have been putting children in cages after forcibly separating them from their parents!, and most in the GOP barely seem to care at all. So does anyone think they care about homophobic and transphobic mistreatment of and brutality against these extremely vulnerable people? It’s absolutely disgusting, but karma is a b****….
CobraPowers
“They have been putting children in cages after forcibly separating them from their parents” You sure weren’t protesting that when Barry Hussein Soetoro was doing it in 2014 (the actual pics of children in cages we have) and losing tens of thousands of children to the hands of child sex traffickers. So why now? We both know you don’t care about these people, your only interest is on hating Trump.
truthseeker
@Kangol
Jail cells for the parents are not cages. Plus the children have it better than some school children in this country.
If these parents were so concerned about the well-being of their children, why would they take them on a 2000 mile trek through dangerous deserts that could nearly kill them. Many of these illegals are illegal enter Mexico to then illegal go to the US. Mexico has offered them sanctuary and jobs. They refused. What does that say?
Plus, what other country would allow you to illegal enter it’s borders, break the law, then have it’s own citizens’ tax dollars pay for your medical care and legal trial so that you can eventually be deported anyway?
The children have to be separated at times to verify that they are in fact with a parent. The Obama administration didn’t verify this and sent many children off with child traffickers. Plus, several children are sent unaccompanied to the border – meaning their parents don’t even care to begin with
Kangol
@CobraPowers, as usual, you are WRONG. Just like with that false Barr Report, you believe whatever you’re mainlining from Breitbart/FauxNews, but it’s BS. The Obama administration did not have a policy of separating children and parents, unlike that racist, narcissistic traitor Drumpf, and it is under this current monstrous mediocrity and his grossly incompetent head of Homeland Security that the horrific policy of parent/child separation, including caging of small children, has taken off.
Quote (ABC News, Google it): The idea that this is simply a continuation of an Obama-era practice is “preposterous,” said Denise Gilman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas Law School. “There were occasionally instances where you would find a separated family — maybe like one every six months to a year — and that was usually because there had been some actual individualized concern that there was a trafficking situation or that the parent wasn’t actually the parent.”
Once custody concerns were resolved, “there was pretty immediately reunification,” Gilman told NBC News. “There were not 2,000 kids in two months — it’s not the same universe,” she added.
@truthseeker, are you out of your mind? The children have been in CAGES. Not “jail cells.” Get a grip!
Also, with regard to the traffickers, it was not “many” children, but a small number whom a trafficker, Araldo Castillo-Serrano, got ahold by getting his associates to pose as relatives. There was a PBS documentary about this, as well as many contemporaneous news reports, AND the Obama administration agreed to revise its policies to prevent this from happening again. Meanwhile, Drumpf’s bud Nielsen can’t even clarify for Congress that she knows where all those little children are, let alone what’s happening to them, though accounts of rapes and abuse, etc. have already emerged.
truthseeker
@Kangol
Just because you choose not to believe something doesn’t make it “false”. Plus, you’re citing a woman that works at a Texas college and not someone who works for border security. She would not have the info on the numbers because the Obama administration chose to not make the numbers public, ever.
The Obama admin put chidren in “cages” too. Former Obama speechwriter, Jon Favreau even got called out for this when he tweeted pictures of children locked in “cages” (your term) claiming it was from the Trump administration when it turned out the photos were from June 2014 showing children sleeping on floors without pillows or blankets under the Obama admin.
The Obama admin was even taken to court for keeping illegals detained for longer than 20 days, separating families, and for barring detained mothers with their children from being released on bond. There was a march in Washington, DC (barely covered by the news media) in regards to it.
In regards to children being given to child traffickers under the Obama admin, how many was the exact number? I bet you don’t even know yet you claim it was a small number. The number should be zero. Why would the Obama admin fumble and hand off children into sex slavery?
Sounds like you’re trying to make the argument that there’s a national emergency at our border, no?
CobraPowers
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t get a different treatment in prison, and that’s what those detention centers are. They are detention centers. And stop pretending like they’d fare better in their countries of origin, where they are sexually assaulted and killed for being gays/trans.
Clay83
Wow, as the Christain you continually bang on about being, you sure are a cruel person. Why am I surpised really, the religious are some of the most awful people alive
fernandorafael
I can’t belive this douche is still alowed to comment here. Every thing he posts is either racist, homophobic or transphobic. What’s a “high-quality immigrant”?
Aires the Ram
What part of ILLEGAL don’t some understand? It’s a shit-show down on the border because these so-called “caravans” of people pouring out of these Central American countries are being encouraged and funded by those who want the United States invaded and de-stabilized. NO COUNTRY on the Earth would ever allow this kind of thing, and then use taxpayer dollars to support ILLEGAL aliens. I hope that by President Trump threatening to close the border, these countries, including Mexico, get off their asses and do something about this. If we have to close the border to put a stop to this, then so be it, economic impact and all. We can handle a shortage of avocados and tomatoes and certain models of new cars, really, we can. If we don’t have borders, law & order, we will have no country, and end up being a second/third world shithole. Wanting our borders in place, and immigration controlled, and merit based, does NOT equal ‘racism’, it equals not wanting our country, our economy, our standard of living, to be flushed down the toilet.
Wayne_in_NYC
You Repugnican assholes who are supporting this inhumane treatment of children, gays, and trans asylum seekers who are trying to escape horrendous conditions in their countries, much of which has been intentionally caused by our own government’s actions to destabilize their governments so that we can get control of their oil and natural resources just make me SICK! We have involved ourselves in the Middle East conflicts causing millions of Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and others to leave their homes and migrate into Europe seeking a better way to live and now it’s happening here to us. This whole mess started way back in the 80’s when Reagan and Oliver North involved us in the Iran-Contra affair and has escalated ever since then! WE, the United States government have caused this mess! We have an obligation to help these refugees! They aren’t the enemies and danger to the USA! YOU and your racist criminal leader are!