Once again the LGBTQ world is asking for special treatment: In this case they are demanding the release of all transgender people in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody — due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Advocacy groups on April 23 filed a class action suit demanding the release of all transgenders in custody because they are “more susceptible” to the virus, the Georgia Voice reports.
Filed by the Transgender Law Center and the Rapid Defense Network, along with a Philadelphia law firm, the lawsuit names as plaintiffs 13 trans women — which is to say men — who are in ICE detention centers in Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and California. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and U.S. Attorney General William Barr are named as defendants.
The lawsuit states trans people in civil immigration detention “are among the most vulnerable during the current pandemic.” It also says ICE “has not provided and cannot implement sufficient measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 in its facilities.”
One of the plaintiffs — a man from Mexico who is in ICE custody at the Florence Correctional Center in Florence, Ariz., — says two fellow detainees in his pod have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Another plaintiff — a trans woman from El Salvador at the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, La., who has been in ICE custody for nearly a year — says nurses do not wear personal protective equipment and personnel at the facility have not provided him with information about the coronavirus. A trans Jamaican woman with HIV who is in ICE custody at the Nevada Southern Detention Center outside of Las Vegas says “staff … including medical staff, do not always wear gloves and masks.”
A trans Honduran woman who is in ICE custody at the Caroline Detention Facility in Bowling Green, Va., says it is “impossible … to practice social distancing” because more than three dozen people live in his dormitory.
