Transgender immigrants in ICE detention describe a pattern of harassment, sexual abuse, prolonged isolation and the abrupt loss of hormone therapy, according to detainees, attorneys and advocates. Several women and gender-diverse people say conditions have worsened under current federal policies. The Department of Homeland Security denies the allegations.
Channel Ferro Badell, a transgender woman originally from Uruguay and a citizen of Argentina, said she was moved through six facilities in six months and faced threats and hostility throughout. In messages shared in Spanish, she said, “Violence is tolerated within ICE.”
Advocates say the second Trump administration has taken a harder line on immigrants and transgender people. Those at the intersection report humiliation, assault and barriers to medical care in interviews and legal filings. Federal officials have rejected these accounts.
Transgender immigrants in ICE detention lose access to care
In August, a 25-year-old transgender woman, Camila Toro de Paula, told reporters she has spent more than a year housed in a men’s immigrant camp while her asylum claim is pending. She and other women at no fewer than 10 ICE sites reportedly had hormone therapy cut off without warning. “I’m afraid of dying here,” she said.
Reporting from the Southwest identified at least 20 transgender women detained across Arizona and Colorado who experienced severe effects after hormones were stopped, including rapid menopause-like symptoms, increased suicidal thoughts and acute psychological distress. One woman said the sudden interruption “messes up your body.”
Interviews, emails and letters from more than half a dozen transgender women in three facilities in Louisiana and Texas, along with court records, describe sexual assault, relentless harassment by staff and other detainees and a sense that a country they turned to for protection instead treated them as criminals.
At River Correctional Center in Louisiana, operated by LaSalle Corrections, a woman who gave her name as Mia said she was shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles. She asked that her last name be withheld due to fear of retaliation. Although her Real ID lists her as female and reflects her current name, she said ICE staff continued to use her former name.
From the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, run by GEO Group, Toro de Paula said she came to the United States believing trans women would be protected by law. She began hormone therapy in New York with medical supervision, and said she felt respected until detention. “I will never forget what’s happening to me now,” she said.
Earlier this month, two transgender men and a nonbinary person at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, a GEO Group facility for women, filed a civil rights complaint alleging the warden forced them into an overnight work crew without protective gear, mocked their gender identities and sexually harassed them.
In the South Texas ICE Processing Center, also run by GEO Group, Ferro Badell said she slept in an open dorm with about 70 men who threatened her with rape and violence. She said she sometimes went days without eating due to ridicule and being blocked from seating. She was deported to Uruguay in August and is being held there pending removal to Argentina, according to a friend, Déa Thatcher.
Isolation and mental health concerns
Transgender women are frequently placed in isolation cells in men’s facilities. Officials say the practice is for safety, but detainees describe it as punitive. Research shows even brief periods of solitary confinement can harm mental health, especially for people with prior trauma, which is common among those held by ICE.
Irene Flores Mendoza, who has PTSD and depression linked to violence she faced in El Salvador as a transgender person, said she has been in segregation for months. Despite being told by a psychologist that extended isolation was unsafe given her conditions and medications, she reported experiencing shadows, voices and delirium.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security called claims of inhumane conditions “categorically false,” adding that “no lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States.” The statement also said, “We are NOT wasting U.S. taxpayer dollars to provide hormone therapy to illegal aliens seeking to change their sex.”
Policy shifts and the end of specialized units
Attorneys and former officials say that before the second Trump administration, many of these cases likely would not have resulted in detention. Asylum seekers were seldom held while their cases were pending, according to Allegra Love, an attorney who handles asylum matters. She said most transgender clients have detailed claims tied to police brutality, gang violence and sexual abuse in their home countries.
Current policy is to detain almost all unauthorized immigrants while cases proceed in immigration court, a process that can take months or years. Former ICE executive Claire Trickler McNulty said the agency retains discretion not to detain, which prior administrations often used for vulnerable people, including transgender detainees. She said that is no longer standard practice.
Until January 2025, ICE reported monthly totals of transgender people in custody, figures that typically numbered a few dozen, according to data archived by the Vera Institute. The administration stopped publishing those counts shortly after the latest inauguration. Experts believe the current total is likely higher due to overall increases in detention.
Under the Obama administration, ICE issued 2015 guidelines on transgender care, addressing housing placement, access to gender-appropriate undergarments and hormone therapy. Those guidelines were effectively rescinded and removed from the DHS website in February 2025.
Beginning in that period, ICE operated dedicated transgender housing units, first at Santa Ana City Jail in Southern California, then in Cibola County, New Mexico, and in Aurora, Colorado. Though those “trans pods” faced many of the same problems as other ICE centers, including overuse of solitary confinement, medical neglect, discrimination and poor living conditions, detainees said there was safety in numbers and recognition of their identities.
Flores Mendoza previously stayed in the Colorado transgender unit before it closed. She said staff there addressed her as Irene. At the South Texas men’s facility where she is now, she wrote, she is called by her former name, denied razors and hormones and told she cannot use makeup. “If you use makeup, you go to the hole,” she said. “They mock me.”
Hawaii perspective: Local advocates have long tracked federal immigration enforcement, including how immigration enforcement reshaped U.S. policy, because many island families have relatives navigating the immigration system on the continent. Attorneys here note that abrupt changes to medical access and housing policies in mainland facilities can ripple to Honolulu immigration courts and support networks serving LGBTQ+ migrants from the Pacific region.
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