The ways in which ICE’s detention standards further anti-trans violence merit reports of their own, as ICE reinforces anti-trans violence in multiple ways through language, policies, and lack of policies. For example, ICE erases nonbinary people by repeatedly utilizing language of “same gender” and “opposite gender” throughout the detention standards.3 It is unclear under what circumstances a detained transgender or gender-nonconforming person could safely express their gender identity within detention considering the scale of accounts of mistreatment.4 According to ICE, all people detained at Karnes during this time period were women, but this is likely inaccurate.
R OA D M A P OF R EP ORT This report will cover not only the legal and medical experiences and outcomes of women detained at Karnes in 2019, but will also touch on their experiences prior to Karnes. In addition, because of the particularities of the expedited removal process, the report will include some background to explain expedited removal and asylum. Furthermore, because of the unique nature of RAICES’ family detention services legal program at the time, the report will provide some context as to how services were provided in 2019 and the state in which women encountered RAICES staff. To illustrate the context in which women were detained in 2019, the report will also include information about the population detained at Karnes prior to the adult women— fathers and sons reunited at Karnes after Trump’s zero tolerance family separations. Because of the plethora of data collected, the report will include graphics and appendices to expound upon information relevant to the topics covered.
ADDITION AL RESOURC ES REGARDI NG GENDE R/T R ANS MIGR ANT J U ST I CE: • Transgender Law Center • Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) • Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement • LGBTQ Freedom Fund • Lambda Legal
While the report compares adult detention to the relatively less harmful practices that occurred in family detention, comparisons are not meant to undermine the serious harms of family detention5 or endorse the practice. RAICES believes unequivocally that all immigrant detention is needlessly punitive and should be abolished. For more information on the harms of family detention, please read RAICES’ 2020 report, “The U.S. Government Kidnapped My Son.”6
3. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Performance-Based National Detention Standards 2011, https://www.ice.gov/doclib/detention-standards/2011/pbnds2011r2016. pdf 4. Ana Castro. LGBTQ, Civil Rights and Immigration Justice Organizations Call For Release of LGBTQ, PLWHIV Currently In Immigration Prisons. Transgender Law Ctr. Sep. 15, 2019, https://transgenderlawcenter.org/archives/14789 5. RAICES, Fact Sheet: Things to Know About ICE Family Detention, Jan. 28, 2021. https:// www.raicestexas.org/2021/01/28/family-detention-factsheet/ 6. RAICES, The U.S. Government Kidnapped My Son, 2019, https://www.raicestexas.org/ take-action/karnes-pro-bono-project/ms-l-report/
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