Hope and Fear for LGBTQI Asylum-Seekers at the U.S.-Mexico Border

May 12, 2022 — Last week the Council for Global Equality hosted five members of Congress on a tour of two shelters for LGBTQI asylum-seekers in Tijuana, Mexico. The migrants living there are waiting to claim asylum in the United States. Representatives Sara Jacobs, Katie Porter, Raul Ruiz, Mark Takano, and Juan Vargas — all southern California Democrats who are familiar with border politics — joined us to tour the shelters, hear the stories of residents fleeing intense persecution, and explore new policy solutions to build an orderly and humane asylum system that supports the most vulnerable during their flight to safety. The shelter visits included stops at Casa Arcoíris and Jardin De Las Mariposas.

Our delegation’s visit was organized around a simple principle: Refugee rights are LGBTQI rights. LGBTQI individuals are disproportionately forced to flee systemic human rights violations, including criminalization in approximately 70 countries. LGBTQI migrants are more vulnerable during flight, while in refugee camps, and in immigration detention. 

The Department of Homeland Security has long recognized that LGBTQI individuals have “special vulnerabilities” based on sexual orientation and gender identity and has issued guidance to limit the detention of transgender asylum seekers – the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. Furthermore, ICE data demonstrates that detained LGBTQI persons are 97 times more likely to experience sexual assault and abuse. Yet the Biden Administration continues to detain LGBTQI asylum seekers. 

This is a matter of urgency for all human rights advocates.

At the shelters, we heard heart-breaking tales of persecution and abuse from all sides: families who beat and ultimately rejected their children because they were effeminate or otherwise different; police who refused to protect, turned a blind eye to public violence, and even refused to take official police complaints; and brutal gangs who forced LGBTQI children into sex work and drug smuggling. Those seeking protection at the border are running for their lives at incredible personal risk, and they literally carry the scars to prove it. The stories from Jamaica, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti were all the same — and their shared experience of persecution and abuse drove them to two cramped but hopeful shelters in Tijuana. Most are afraid to leave the shelters, but inside, they have found a welcoming if temporary refuge. 

The residents we met are lucky. They made it to a sanctuary where they are provided with medical care, psychological support, and access to lawyers to help prepare their U.S. asylum claims. But because the U.S. border remains closed to asylum-seekers on spurious public health grounds related to COVID-19 — known by everyone at the border as “Title 42” — the migrants we met are waiting for the border to open to access their legal right to protection and a new chance at life. Some have been waiting for a year or even longer. A lucky few have been allowed to cross on an emergency basis over the past few weeks, but most are still waiting.

Let’s be unmistakably clear: Title 42 isn’t about public health — it’s an illegal and disingenuous way to deny asylum to vulnerable people. Leading public health officials have rejected the public health justifications for Title 42, and leading international lawyers have called it “illegal” and “inhumane.” After more than a year in office, the Biden Administration released plans to lift Title 42 and open the border to these migrants later this month, although a U.S. court may block or temporarily delay the opening. Additionally, some members of Congress, in both parties, are currently scheming to try to keep the border shut to asylum seekers. It’s time to lift Title 42 for good.

We also heard from asylum lawyers about the perilous legal journey these migrants will face when they are eventually allowed to cross the border and apply for asylum in the United States. Many will be detained by ICE while their asylum cases are adjudicated – especially Jamaican, Haitian, and other Black shelter residents. Arbitrary and racially biased ICE detention decisions are a daily and sometimes deadly reality. 

Our delegation heard one message clearly: LGBTQI detention is costly, cruel, and counterproductive. Not only is detention dangerous for LGBTQI asylum seekers, but it is also unnecessary. LGBTQI asylum seekers have some of the highest rates of successfully demonstrating that they have a credible fear of persecution during screening interviews, and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that “any reasonable adjudicator would find a pattern or practice of persecution against transgender women in Honduras.” There should be a strong presumption against ICE detention for LGBTQI asylum seekers.

Asylum procedures for vulnerable LGBTQI refugees must be safe, timely, and humane — they still fail on all counts. We heard how the asylum adjudication process is re-traumatizing because of unnecessarily duplicative and adversarial procedures, and how the current system leaves LGBTQI refugees in limbo for years because of needless delays and backlogs. 

In a Presidential Memorandum issued last year, the Biden Administration pledged to prioritize the protection of vulnerable LGBTQI refugees and asylum seekers. Unfortunately, the U.S. government’s current asylum policies are in violation of U.S. law and treaty obligations, and they remain racist, homophobic, and transphobic, despite stated intentions to fix them. We need a new asylum system that is centered on refugee protection and not just enforcement.

See More Coverage:

Kate Morrissey, “Congressmembers Highlight LGBTQ Asylum Seekers’ Struggle in Visit to Border” (San Diego Union Tribune) 

Michael K. Lavers, “Five Calif. Congress Members Visit Tijuana Shelters for LGBTQ Asylum Seekers” (Washington Blade/Los Angeles Blade)