A transgender woman died on June 1, the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month, after being released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, NBC News and The Washington Post reported. Johana “Joe” Medina Leon, a 25-year-old from El Salvador, was taken to Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, on May 28, after complaining of chest pains. ICE told NBC News that the same day she was processed for release on parole, she was admitted to the hospital.
"This is yet another unfortunate example of an individual who illegally enters the United States with an untreated, unscreened medical condition,” Corey A. Price, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in El Paso, said in a statement.
"She didn't violate a single law coming to the U.S. to ask for political asylum," Allegra Love, director of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, said.
According to the Post, ICE officials said Medina Leon had been detained on April 11, after she presented herself at a port of entry in El Paso. She had passed an interview for credible fear of persecution in her nation of origin — grounds for being granted asylum — and on May 18 was paroled from custody at the Otero County Processing Center, the day she was hospitalized. Officials said she had also tested positive for HIV, a test she requested, on the day she was hospitalized.
As reported by NBC News, the Otero County ICE facility is a privately run site in New Mexico where advocates and lawyers alleged, in March, that LGBTQ migrants have suffered “inadequate medical care,” “retaliation and unlawful use of solitary confinement,” and “rampant sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse.”
At the time, the company that runs the facility, Management & Training Corporation, told NBC News that it was "not aware” and had “no evidence” that such incidents had taken place. An ICE spokeswoman told The Washington Post at the time, “ICE is committed to ensuring that those in our custody reside in safe, secure, and human environments, and under appropriate conditions of confinement.”
Medina Leon’s death comes just over a year after 33-year-old trans woman Roxsana Hernández died in ICE custody. Hernández, a migrant from Honduras, died on May 25, 2018, and an independent autopsy, commissioned by her family and the Transgender Law Center (TLC), reportedly found that she had been beaten and died of dehydration and complications from HIV. The autopsy process also found witnesses who said she had been denied medical care, despite obvious need.
At the time, ICE said, it “takes very seriously the health, safety, and welfare of those in our care, including those who come into ICE custody with prior medical conditions or who have never before received appropriate medical care.”
According to NBC News, TLC filed a lawsuit on Friday over Hernández’s death. TLC's executive director, Kris Hayashi, said in a statement that the group is "devastated and outraged, but not surprised" by Medina Leon’s death. Of both Medina Leon and Hernández, Hayashi wrote, "These deaths are a direct result of U.S. government policy, and will continue unless we force dramatic change."
"I give an interview a week about the medical conditions for trans women," Love of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project told NBC News. "If anyone wants to pretend to be shocked, did you miss a year ago when a trans woman died in custody in Albuquerque?"
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: LGBTQ Asylum Seekers Face Danger at the United States-Mexico Border
