Immigrant Detainee Seeks Parole to Resume Hormones
Honduran trans asylum seeker, 25, nabbed by ICE leaving Nassau County courthouse
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
This past Christmas Eve
was supposed to be a
very special one for Yimy
Aldair Benitez Lopez. A
25-year-old Honduran immigrant
who is transgender and gay and
has made a mark as a drag performer
in Queens, they looked forward
to the holiday celebration to
mark the completion of their gender
transition.
But seven weeks ahead of Christmas,
Benitez Lopez, who is undocumented,
saw their world thrown
into disarray. On November 7, they
were apprehended by US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement
outside of Nassau County criminal
court. ICE planned to immediately
put Benitez Lopez on a plane to
Honduras, but an emergency motion
filed by Make the Road New
York, a social justice group working
on behalf of immigrants, blocked
the deportation.
Make the Road NY, in its motion
to a Department of Justice immigration
court, argued that Benitez
Lopez never received notice of a deportation
hearing that took place
shortly after they arrived in the
US, when they were 18 — where
they were ordered deported in absentia
— and that their case should
be reopened. Benitez Lopez has recounted
a severe anti-gay attack
they suffered as a youth in Honduras,
and is now seeking asylum
in the US based on their continued
fear of their assailant and the general
rise in anti-LGBTQ violence in
that country.
“The 24th of December was supposed
to be the happiest day of my
life, the day of the beginning of the
new path to live in the world as I
am: a transgender woman,” Benitez
Lopez said in a written statement
provided to Gay City News by
Make the Road NY. “It is very difficult
for me that this dream was
not to be realized on this day. But
I know that in the future, I will return
to this path and I will live in
the world as I am.”
An immigration judge last month
rejected Benitez Lopez’s motion but
Yimy Aldair Benitez Lopez was followed out of a Nassau County courthouse by ICE agents who arrested
them, and now Benitez Lopez is seeking parole from detention in order to continue needed hormone
treatment while their bid for asylum proceeds.
issued no written opinion explaining
that decision. Their case is now
being appealed to the Board of Immigration
Appeals (BIA), but while
those proceedings play out Benitez
Lopez has been subjected to the
harsh conditions of detention in
an ICE facility in Hudson County,
New Jersey.
For a transgender person, that
detention poses more than just the
typical hazards of mass incarceration.
Benitez Lopez fears violence
based on their trans status — several
trans women have died in ICE
custody in the past several years
— and so is presenting as a male
and has stopped their hormone
treatment.
COURTESY OF MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK
On January 13, Make the Road
NY filed a parole request with ICE
to allow Benitez Lopez to be released
from detention pending
their BIA appeal so they may resume
their hormone treatment.
A 2015 ICE directive specifically
called for broad discretion in considering
individual factors in the
determination of whether a transgender
person’s health needs can
be met in detention.
Now, Benitez Lopez must await
a parole decision by ICE and then
a ruling on their appeal before the
BIA, which has not yet heard their
case.
Benitez Lopez would not be in
the dire situation in which they
HUMAN RIGHTS
find themself but for the aggressive
tactics used by ICE in the
years since Donald Trump became
president. In 2016, the last year of
the Obama presidency, there were
11 arrests by ICE agents in or near
courthouses in New York State, according
to the Immigration Defense
Project . By 2018, that number had
grown to 178, despite the fact that
the state court system’s rules now
bar arrests on court premises unless
agents have a judicial warrant
or order.
Benitez Lopez’s appearance in
court in November represented
their first brush with the law, resulting
from a domestic violence
arrest. According to Make the
Road NY, that case is headed for
dismissal, with the complainant
not asking for a protective order.
The Nassau County criminal court
judge released Benitez Lopez on
their own recognizance while the
case proceeds.
ICE, on the other hand, having
failed in its zeal to deport Benitez
Lopez immediately, has insisted
that they remain in detention as
their appeal continues to work its
way through the system.
“I want to use my voice to fight
for my freedom and the freedom for
other trans people in detention, because
I know that there are those
of us who are silenced and stay in
silence in detention centers across
the country because of fear of punishment
if we speak out about our
mistreatment,” Benitez Lopez said
in their written statement.
The parole request for Benitez
Lopez is part of a larger initiative
to ensure better justice for immigrants
seeking sanctuary from
persecution in their home countries.
A statewide coalition of advocates,
including Make the Road NY
and the Immigration Defense Project,
are pushing for enactment of
the Protect Our Courts Act, which
would broaden and codify in New
York law the court system’s ban
on ICE arrests without a judicial
warrant or order. Drawing on concepts
from federal criminal justice
➤ ASYLUM SEEKER, continued on p.22
GayCityNews.com | January 16 - January 29, 2020 5
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