Transgendered, Gay ICE Detainees Sue Over Treatment at Theo Lacy Jail

By Nick Schou Fri., Apr. 15 2011 at 11:17 AM

Categories: Breaking News

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Guards at Theo Lacy Jail routinely taunted transgendered immigration detainees, abusing them with anti-gay slurs and intrusive and unnecessary searches, while also keeping them locked in their cells for 22 hours a day, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday on behalf of 13 detainees. According to the lawsuit, 22-year-old transgendered inmate Alejandro Cortez-Reyna complained after her two-hour allowance outside her cell was reduced to about 45 minutes. Guards allegedly responded: "Because you need to learn how not to be a faggot."

AP broke the news of the lawsuit yesterday; Cindy Carcamo at the Register has a story about it which you can read here. The lawsuit goes on to say that guards allegedly taunted Cortez-Reyna, who prefers to be called "Alexis," with anti-gay slurs and joked about her dying of AIDS. The guards also alllegedly taunted Alexis by forcing her to disrobe in public under the guise of searching her for contraband.

The suit was filed by the Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, which claims that the mistreatment was not isolated to a handful of bigoted deputies, but rather was part of a systematically unfair policy toward gay and transgendered immigration detainees at the jail as well as several other facilities around the country, including the Santa Ana Jail where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts with local enforcement agencies to house immigration detainees.

Both ICE and OC Sheriff's Dept. officials say they're investigating the claims made in the lawsuit.

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You're a major idiotic ass-bite!
keep them Jotos here so i can have fun with there man holes. I love me some chorizo i tell you
Alejandro is transgendered. So biologically she was born with male sex, but psychologically lives with female gender.
'Housing non-criminal detainees in jails with criminals is a violation of human rights" They are criminals if they are here illegaly. Why is that so hard to understand? As for the kid you interviewed, whose fault is that he is being deported? Yours, mine? Nope, if he looks in a mirror, he'll find the answer.
"Don't get arrested in the first place and then you wouldn't find yourself in this little situation. I don't know why prisoners expect to have rights, the minute you commit a crime your rights should be taken away! " You have no information that any of these folks committed a crime. Hint: They are ICE detainees (ICE houses people in jails who are detained for immigration reasons), not necessarily criminals. Housing non-criminal detainees in jails with criminals is a violation of human rights. Just last week I interviewed a recent high school honors graduate in the local jail where he is being detained before being sent back to a country he left when he was four years old. He had been accepted to an excellent college and would have been a great addition to this country. Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience ... Therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring. Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, 1950
So what? Don't come here illegaly and this wont happen.
What's the problem ? Would you rather has everyone walk out with full blown aids? Keep the freeks to themselves.
Gee real women...........how do you really feel!!!..........I hope you remember how you got here.....and wonder if you can please leave the same way.
criminals from other coutntries should have no rights, where in the constitution does it give murdering lousy people who are hear illegally any rights at all, just citizens you morons, this is just another sorry sissy thing from bleeding hearts, get real these people will crush us given the chance, they are mud people and don't even know if they are a girl or boy. but I bet they sell sex in prison to make a living, what crap to worry about these losers send em back to where they came from the pigs
Prisoners do have rights. Also,, Alexis is not in prison but in immigration detention--there is a major difference. There is some oversight over prisons and jails, but not for immigration detention. Even though Theo Lacy is a jail, the portions dedicated to immigration detention have little oversight so inhumane treatment occurs regularly. It is complete bullcrap that our tax dollars go to the inhuman treatment of others such as Alexis. And then what happens is great groups like ACLU rightfully sue the government, and the government consequently has to shell out MORE tax dollars to compensate the victim. Just stop those damn renegade agents that are power tripping! Take away their guns and batons and see if they are still mistreating other human beings.
"Cortez-Reyna, who is HIV positive and prefers to be called 'Alexis...'" Seems pretty clear, given the context, that Alexis is a Male to Female transgendered person. If anyone is curious, it would be most polite to refer to Alexis as her, since that's her gender orientation (though from the sound of it, she might be pre-operation, since it sounds like she's in a men's correctional facility, which opens up a whole semantic can of worms...) and how she would present herself (if she can/could in prison clothing). Anyone who doubts that this is her orientation should consider that she allegedly she was systematically, for 22+ hours a day, humiliated and isolated for being who she is, not to mention what I can only imagine involved sexual abuse from other inmates. And yet she stayed the way she is. Also, everyone, EVERYONE deserves to avoid, what's that phrase, Cruel and Unusual Punishment. If anyone has ever been on the other side of the sort of hate-filled rhetoric that she was allegedly subjected to, you'd know that one can only thick-skin it out for so long before the barbs find a way in.
Thank God for freedom of speach.... What I have read on this wall is enough to be criminal
So much for the oath taken by ICE Agents; do they need schooling on decency, respect and dignity in treatment of others? How dare this country expect other nations to treat our citizens in a humane manner, when we have no respect for others. This is yet another note on that double standard that we have become; we are so full of "it" Some may argue that ilegal immigrants should not have the same basic rights of American citizens. I argue human beings have basic rights as just that human beings. So are we saying that those in power have a free pass to abuse to those in their power. I believe our Constituon implies a degree of dignity and decent behaviour for all, at least that is the premise it was written on. No wonder we need the ACLU.
Shes probably in a male jail because she was born male. Regardless, she should be treated like all the other inmates, no better or worse, unless she did something especially heinous then she should just be shot in the head along with the rest of em.
Shocked but not surprised by the comments. Very disappointed in you as a human. No one earns or deserves to be treated worse than we allow animals to be treated. Shame on you.
so is h/s/he/it!
Any time I see "Immigrant Justice" anything, I know its advocating open borders and the murder of white people.
Don't get arrested in the first place and then you wouldn't find yourself in this little situation. I don't know why prisoners expect to have rights, the minute you commit a crime your rights should be taken away!
Alejandro Cortez-Reyna so is that a male or female. I'm confused!