US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published new guidance in June on the care of transgender adults in immigration detention, in a Memorandum titled “Further Guidance Regarding the Care of Transgender Detainees.”
The Memorandum provides guidelines in several areas of detainee care, including intake procedures, determining housing placement, medical care, conducting searches, and access to clothing and commissary hygiene products.
Notably, the guidance provides that transgender individuals may be assigned housing consistent with their gender identity rather than biological sex. Additionally, housing in administrative segregation should be used only as a last resort when no other viable housing alternatives exist.
Just days after ICE published this Memorandum, immigration and transgender activist Jennicet Gutierrez made headlines for disrupting President Obama during his speech at an LGBTQ Pride Reception at the White House, in an attempt to draw attention to the concerns of transgender individuals in ICE detention.
The full Memorandum is available here.
