Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena accused of abusing transexual detainees

quote:

---

Three transgender women who have been detained for months at a male-only central Louisiana immigration detention center allege that they have faced abuse and transphobia at the hands of staff and other detainees.

In interviews with Verite News, they allege that they have been assaulted by officers, forcibly detransitioned, verbally harassed and kept in solitary confinement.

“Everywhere they call us men, ****, very offensive words,” Camila Toro de Paula, one of the detainees, told Verite News. The officers “let it happen. We don’t have a right to anything here; we trans women don’t have rights” at the facility, she added.

Two of the women — Estephany Rivas and Sofia — have spent months at Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena. The third, Camila Toro de Paula, has been there for more than a year. The three women are in protective custody, separated from other detainees. Verite is only using Sofia’s middle name because she is worried about the conditions at the detention center continuing or worsening.

---

quote:

---

“Sofia approached the sergeant with the intent to explain how she and other queer detainees felt this was discriminatory,” a psychologist who, in coordination with Humanitarian Outreach for Migrant Emotional Health, provided a mental health evaluation for Sofia’s asylum case. “According to Sofia, the sergeant told her to ‘shut up,’ followed by ‘shut your mouth.’”

“She went to her cell, grabbed a razor, and ‘cut [her]self, just to feel relief,” the report continued.

“Sofia elaborated that the superficial “scratch” relieved her frustration,” the psychologist wrote. “She believes there is a difference between clinical symptoms of depression and her experience of being ‘rightfully stressed for being [detained] so long under unfair conditions.’”

DHS responded that both Central Louisiana facility staff and medical staff deny the incident occurred, despite their own records showing Sofia had been transferred to a mental health hospital for self-harm.

---

quote:

---

All three women say they are being denied treatment for medical ailments like stomach aches, blood in their urine and skin rashes, and are also denied trans health care.

---

quote:

---

The women also say that they are also being denied feminine clothes and makeup, both of which would help them feel more comfortable in their bodies.

“They don’t let us wear makeup, so what we do is use a pencil to paint on our faces. Just because we do that, they get mad and report us. What harm are we doing to them by” using pencils to replace makeup, Rivas said.

DHS says the allegations that undergarments have been changed is false. Regarding their use of colored pencils as makeup, DHS says that “detainees are not permitted to utilize colored pencils outside their intended use” because it is considered contraband.

---