Camila Toro de Paula fled Venezuela two years ago after enduring years of violence, including being raped as a child and attacked by police for being transgender. She made her way to the United States on foot, was granted temporary status while her asylum case moved forward, and built a new life in New York City.

Then last summer, ICE arrested her at a routine immigration check-in and sent her to a detention facility in Louisiana, where she is held with men instead of women. Toro de Paula says she has been isolated for long stretches without reliable access to water, assaulted, and denied the gender-affirming care she needs. Guards have made her wear a mask and gloves whenever she leaves her cell, citing her HIV status, she says. "I'm afraid of dying here," she told The New York Times in an interview from the facility.

Until February 2025, federal policy addressed how transgender people in ICE custody should be housed and cared for. That policy was eliminated at the start of the current Trump administration. Lynly Egyes, legal director of the Transgender Law Center, says the shift has made it "almost impossible" for transgender detainees to get the medical care they need, calling it an escalation of policies first introduced during Trump's first term.

The Department of Homeland Security denies that detainees are mistreated, stating that "no detainees are being beaten or abused." But Toro de Paula's account, backed by her lawyers and her own medical records, tells a different story.

No one should be denied basic medical care or put in danger because of who they are. Sign the petition to demand ICE restore medical care standards and safe housing protections for transgender detainees — before another person is hurt.