Image accompanying my essay: Activists from the human rights group, Doctors for Camp Closures, hold illuminated signs on a freeway overpass next to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, in February 2020. The group is calling for the end of US immigration detention centers and the US policy of returning asylum seekers to Mexico and Central America to wait for their asylum court appointments. EFE/EPA/DAVID MAUNG
In January 2021, my piece on the mistreatment of transgender asylum seekers in the United States was published on Open Global Rights.
Trump administration enacted an unprecedented reduction in the number of asylum seekers admitted to the United States—admissions are only about 16% of the cap the Obama administration established in 2016. Transgender asylum seekers, who are already more at-risk than typical applicants, now face tremendous hurdles and abuse as they try to survive in the opaque confines of this increasingly constrictive immigration system.