ALBUQUERQUE — The family of a transgender Honduran migrant who died in ICE custody are saying the woman did not receive medical care and was abused.
From the SF Gate:
Tennessee-based civil rights attorney Andrew Free released details of an independent autopsy this week that noted deep bruising along Roxsana Hernandez’s ribs that wasn’t evident externally, contusions on her back and injuries around her wrists that were likely caused by handcuffs.
The autopsy also concluded that Hernandez likely died as the result of severe dehydration complicated by HIV.
Free is working with the California-based Transgender Law Center to represent Hernandez’s family. He has filed a notice of intent to sue over her death, saying he has requested documents from various federal agencies about the conditions in which the woman was kept.
Hernandez was part of the migrant caravan that traveled from Central America through Mexico to request asylum in the United States last spring. She died May 25 in Albuquerque. SF Gate reported an independent autopsy found she died of dehydration related to HIV and pneumonia and had been physically abused. The official autopsy by New Mexico hasn’t be released yet.
Immigration attorney Allegra love told the Associated Press that ICE regularly puts transgender women in solitary confinement and hasn’t been giving the women needed medical care. As a transgender woman, she had a good chance of asylum.
“All they had to do was keep her alive,” Love told the news service. “We would have gotten Roxsana out. She just needed more time.”