About 30 immigration and LGBT activists and allies from Tucson, Phoenix and even Oakland gathered at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Phoenix this morning with megaphones and signs in English and Spanish that read, “Free Nicoll,” “Trans Lives Matter,” and other support messages for Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, a transgender woman from Guatemala, who has been in an all-male immigration detention center in Florence for about four months now.
Tucson immigration and LGBT rights advocate Raúl Alcaraz Ochoa was there, with fellow members of BorderLinks, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, Arcoiris Liberation Team and Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project. Two young attorneys from Oakland’s the Transgender Law Center also came.
The march headed to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Phoenix headquarters, where the group protested the abuse transgender detainees suffer in detention—in the short time Nicoll has been in ICE’s Florence facility, she has already reported verbal, physical and sexual abuse. ICE responded they take these issues very seriously.
The gathering was peaceful. Police and other law enforcement didn’t approach with any issues. However, when a group of activists, among them Alcaraz Ochoa, walked into the ICE courtyard to deliver a letter demanding for Nicoll’s immediate release—they have this online petition, too: http://www.notonemoredeportation.com/portfolio/freenicoll/—ICE agents said they would not accept the letter because there were members of the media present. I counted less than 10 of us and only I from Tucson.
Anyway, one of the Phoenix transgender activists present, Viktoria Villalba, grabbed the megaphone and announced ICE did not want to accept the letter because, “They are scared of us.”
“They are inhumane. They abuse us in detention,” she screamed.
I spoke with a trans woman from Sinaloa, Mexico, Marichuy Leal, who was released from detention about one month ago. She, too, was put in an all-male detention center, and like Nicoll, was sexually assaulted by detainees. When she told guards in detention what was happening, Marichuy said they told her to “deal with it.” Is this what they would tell their daughters, too?
She was on the same boat as Nicoll. They’re both pleading for asylum in the U.S. afters years of violent abuse in their native countries for being trans, except Marichuy is now free while she waits for a decision, and Nicoll is still imprisoned.
Nicoll has an asylum hearing in April, and her lawyer, advocates and other supporters hope she can wait for that outside detention.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2015.
When will American’s lives matter?
This two time criminal invader should be sent back immediately.
Sexually molested while here? What about the 70% of females that are molested while crossing the border lured by the promises of the Grijalva’s to clean their toilets? Oh, wait, that’s ok. They’re worth $6000/head to H.T. Sanchez and TUSD.
Here’s an easy way to avoid jail: don’t enter America illegally.
Since we now have become a nation of no laws and can pick and choose which laws applies to us we should just let him out and with the rest of the illegals and queers give them some medical marijuana and let them get high and screw each other.
Reads like “The Onion”. Equality for all, huh LGBT community of Tucson? Then march for the other asylum seekers too.