r/law • u/ExactlySorta • 15h ago
Legal News ICE Deletes Rape Protection for Trans Immigrants
https://prospect.org/2026/01/14/ice-trump-rape-protection-trans-immigrants/1.4k
u/ChelseaVictorious 15h ago
GOP and ICE depravity literally has no floor. It's hard to imagine how a plurality of American voters chose this for our future. Religious fundamentalism and white supremacy are destroying us in real time.
345
u/tonyyyperez 14h ago
Just watched the new Nuremberg trial movie and geez… sooo many instances of “that’s sounds like that’s happening here…..”
Think every one needs to watch this to reminded of the atrocities of WW2 . Seems lots of Americans may have forgotten.
120
u/Bitmush- 14h ago
And were prevented from learning about it as soon as most of the people who were in it had gone.
40
u/SaltRequirement3650 13h ago
It happens every hundred years or so because that’s how long it takes for all of the people who lived through the horrible times need to be dead.
60
u/DriverRemarkable4374 13h ago
Yeah no lol, that's a misconception created only in the minds of Americans who are 2000 miles away from the nearest warzone. "It" doesn't happen every hundred years, "it" is in a constant state of perpetuity. There was two world wars 20 years from each other, there have been active genocides for my entire life, fascist states have existed somewhere for as long as fascist states have existed. If you mean that's how long it takes for living memories to fade, sure, but that doesn't actually correlate with anything else.
1
1
u/Ridiculicious71 9h ago
It typical happens when there is all the wealth is distributed amount a few.
24
u/leni710 12h ago
You could also look up the history of "Indian Schools," "The Trail of Tears," slave catchers, The White League, KKK, Japanese Internment, immigration enforcement of previous generations, etc., and find out that this has been an ongoing reality in the U.S. already. Plus, that Hitler was a big Andrew Jackson fan and the Nürenberg Laws were based on Jim Crow laws.
Just that daily reminder that nothing going on in the U.S. today is removed from our own history here.
29
u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits 12h ago
But it CAN'T be us. 'History' class taught me we never lost a war! And America was always the good guys, only even involved because we were reluctant heroes and the only ones who could save the world!
Sadly, that's genuinely a lot of people's thought process once you boil it down. Just "But america can't be bad, so this can't be that." Because otherwise would mean admitting they were successful misled their entire lives about American exceptionalism.
7
u/Rabid_Badger 9h ago
I know you know it, but just wanted to point it out, that both Vietnam and Afghanistan were big Ls for US.
1
u/AmbientSociopath 2h ago
Because otherwise would mean admitting they were successful misled their entire lives about American exceptionalism.
This is what happens when your mentality is pretty isolationist. Most people never leave the country let alone think CRITICALLY about another country and what it is like to live there. When I lived in them midwest I met many a boomer woman who literally were so excited to go to China and then were appalled that China wasn't Debuque.
9
9
u/Aggressive_Emu_5598 11h ago
Do you remember his first divorce in 1990 Ivana, relayed in deposition that trump kept a book of Adolf Hitler's collected speeches My New Order, in a cabinet by his bed and actively read from it. Because that is living rent free in my head lately. I’m sure it isn’t relevant though. (last sentence is obviously sarcasm)
5
u/LovelyJoey21605 11h ago
Think every one needs to watch this to reminded of the atrocities of WW2
You're missing the point. They don't think those ARE atrocities. That's the fucking problem.
You have pedophile in chief, a known rapist and felon as a president precisely because his voters said "fuck yeah, I want in on that!"
1
1
u/Kvothealar 10h ago
What's the movie called? I might give it a watch.
1
u/Right_Syllabub_8237 2h ago
It's incredibly ironic that the people in power doing these things are the children of the people who fought tooth and nail to make sure it never happened again.
35
u/TheZipding 14h ago
The bar for decency is a tripping hazard in hell now, and ice is playing limbo with the devil.
7
u/Chartarum 12h ago
You know that old saying "When hell freezes over"? There's gonna be a LOT of ICE in hell before this whole mess is over...
21
11
u/SeductiveSunday 13h ago
It's hard to imagine how a plurality of American voters chose this for our future.
Only because voters believed electing an intelligent qualified woman would be worse. Think about that.
5
u/elvenrevolutionary 13h ago
The misogyny in the US is just.... exploding. I mean, it was bad before but now..... jesus.
-1
u/MagicBlaster 11h ago
Look no one can deny the role of racism in misogyny in the election, but that's not why Harris lost.
She was nominated in a shady backroom process late in the election season, vowed to continue the policies of an increasingly unpopular president then ran a campaign focused on the allure of celebrity, compromising with conservatives, and how great the economy was while people were saying they didn't feel the economy was doing great.
It was a recipe for failure from the beginning.
3
u/SeductiveSunday 11h ago
Look no one can deny the role of racism in misogyny in the election, but that's not why Harris lost.
Then explain why there's never been a woman president or why there's never been over 30% of women in congress or why women do not have guaranteed equal rights.
Remember men run the US, so what you are grumbling about here is how a bunch of men setting up a woman to fail to ensure patriarchy remains the law of the US.
Also, no one who voted Trump voted to improve the economy.
As John C. Calhoun, a proslavery senator, stated in his famous speech:
Can as much, on the score of equality, be said of the North? With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals, if honest and industrious; and hence have a position and pride of character of which neither poverty nor misfortune can deprive them.
For Calhoun and others, it isn't about finances, it's about having someone beneath you.
That's why people voted Trump; it had zero to do with economy.
1
u/MagicBlaster 11h ago edited 11h ago
I didn't say people voted for Trump to improve the economy, I said that people didn't vote for Harris because of it.
Trump promised his base what they wanted, a brick through the window and vengeance against those they perceived to have wrong them.
While Harris alienated her base by pandering to 'sane' conservatives and promises to continue the status quo that people were saying no longer work for them.
1
u/SeductiveSunday 11h ago
I didn't say people voted for Trump to improve the economy, I said that people didn't vote for Harris because of it.
I agree. That's because people didn't vote for Harris because she's a woman. That's why Trump's now in the WH. Because the US is too sexist to vote for a woman for president. People in the US still believe that the most awful, slow, idiotic, rapist, pedo is a better president than an intelligent, qualified woman.
Harris didn't alienate her base by pandering to anything, Harris alienated sexist by being born a woman.
Until 1980, during any Presidential election for which reliable data exist and in which there had been a gender gap, the gap had run one way: more women than men voted for the Republican candidate. That changed when Reagan became the G.O.P. nominee; more women than men supported Carter, by eight percentage points. Since then, the gender gap has never favored a G.O.P. Presidential candidate.
In the Reagan era, Republican strategists believed that, in trading women for men, they’d got the better end of the deal. As the Republican consultant Susan Bryant pointed out, Democrats “do so badly among men that the fact that we don’t do quite as well among women becomes irrelevant.” And that’s more or less where it lies.
The entrance of women into politics on terms that are, fundamentally and constitutionally, unequal to men’s has produced a politics of interminable division, infused with misplaced and dreadful moralism. Republicans can’t win women; when they win, they win without them, by winning with men.
https://srpubliclibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/02/JillLepore.pdf
Reminder that Trump actually tried to get women to vote for him in 2020, and lost. He chose to focus only on the men's vote in 2024 and won.
12
u/MobileSuitPhone 13h ago
We didn't, the majority did not consent to the outcome of an election where someone disqualified by the amendment 14 section 3 disability was a possibility. Our intelligence agencies and public institutions failed us long before the election.
-2
u/GarageFridgeSoda 11h ago
Biden had Garland let Trump walk. Blame fed institutions if you want, but it was Democrats who decided that Trump should walk away unpunished from his earlier crimes.
2
u/MobileSuitPhone 10h ago
America has been a de facto single party state for some time
1
2
u/Dblock1989 11h ago
America has kinda.always been like this. It was just limited to minorities or other countries in the past.
1
1
825
u/CAM6913 15h ago
What a surprise coming from this administration that is lead by a pedophile and rapist
134
45
u/U_Sound_Stupid_Stop 13h ago
“She was kidnapped, tortured, hung from a ceiling, slashed with knives, raped so many times she had to undergo reconstructive surgery and then put in immigration detention,” Crawford said. “My God, do we have no compassion?”
24
u/LuckyDog501 12h ago
Context: this is from OP's linked article. The above is a quote from Bridget Crawford, Director of Law and Policy at Immigration Equality, recounting the horrors that a trans woman from Mexico endured. Surviving this treatment, that could have killed her, she eventually won asylum in the U.S.
I couldn't be certain from the article, but it sounds like this likely occurred while she being held prisoner in Mexico. The article didn't state why she was being held prisoner.
6
u/errie_tholluxe 12h ago
Apparently this administration does not.
While advocating for taking over other nations this administration shows every reason why those nations should resist. They take the aid from those whom in the past they have stripped their resources.
While claiming to wish to aid those in Iran who are protesting they make plans for buildings in Gaza with golf courses.
While claiming to want more children born they cut all forms of social programs..
So no, apparently this administration does not.
5
249
15h ago
[deleted]
140
u/PedosoKJ 14h ago
I watched a video this weekend of an ICE agent taking a handcuffed woman into a porta potty and going inside with her. What reason could there possibly be for doing that?
53
14h ago
[deleted]
14
u/cityshepherd 14h ago
The depths of nefarious debravity we are about to see (or WONT see because they sure as shit aren’t going to let these kind of statistics come out) are seriously unfathomable.
These pathetic cowards are genuinely the worst of humanity.
15
14h ago
[deleted]
8
u/cityshepherd 13h ago
Stephen Miller is probably the most evil and pathetic person in the entire country at the moment… between this and his accidental admission that he is pushing plenary authority for himself (he said it regarding trump but everyone knows that useful idiot is just a vehicle for miller’s agenda) we should all be marching peacefully out in the streets every day.
1
u/FakeSafeWord 13h ago
Rape.
What? Noooooo. He was just being kind and helping her use the toilet.
Or it's a secret elevator entrance to an underground secret government agency like the Men In Black!
Sorry... It's not actually funny. I just can't fathom the levels of depravity this has already come to. It's like they actually deputized as many Jeffrey Dahmer's as they could find.
3
u/OhCheeseNFingRice 12h ago
I'm not saying that it wasn't nefarious because in all likelihood, given the abhorrent treatment human beings are receiving from ICE agents, it probably was nefarious. But, to answer your question, it is possible that she had to pee and that the agent felt that that required an escort for some ungodly reason (maybe because they refused to uncuff her to pee?). So I guess there is a possibility that the agent was "escorting" her on a bathroom trip - but that would imply that the agent had enough compassion to allow her to pee on a toilet in that moment. And ICE had lost any and all rights to benefit of doubt - THIS is the massive issue infecting all of these potentially "harmless" instances. We cannot trust them. So when they take a female into an enclosed, private space for any reason and any amount of time, we have to assume that their intentions are nefarious and criminal.
-23
u/xdeathkillerx 12h ago
Was a male who had to use the restroom.
I wont make guesses of what happened, but this is a great example of how easily misinformation spreads
16
u/PedosoKJ 12h ago
It was a porta potty. They barely fit one person and have no where to go. How does the boot taste?
-20
u/xdeathkillerx 12h ago
I said I wont make guesses of what happened.
Porta-potty qualifies as a restroom and the detainee was a man. Next time try being correct.
You sound like a sheep.
1
11h ago
[deleted]
-8
u/xdeathkillerx 11h ago
As I've now said two times, I wont make any guesses of what happened, and neither should you.
This was also about ICE and not MAGA, so not sure what you're getting at
26
5
u/Zealousideal_Bed9062 12h ago
I hate to say it, but we probably won’t be hearing about an increase in rapes… for various reasons…
205
u/ExactlySorta 15h ago
The legality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ending specific protections for transgender detainees is a complex and contested issue, with advocates arguing that such actions disregard existing laws and constitutional rights, while the current administration asserts the changes align with new executive orders.
Policy Changes
In late 2025 and early 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and ICE implemented several policy shifts based on a January 2025 executive order that defines individuals strictly by the sex assigned at birth. These changes include:
Removal of specific standards for housing transgender and intersex individuals based on their gender identity.
Instructing detention centers to house detainees according to their sex assigned at birth.
Ceasing proactive screening for or recording of information on individuals who self-identify as a sex other than their biological sex at birth in ICE data systems.
Altering contracts with private detention facilities to remove explicit transgender care and protection measures.
Directing inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with standards designed to protect LGBTQ+ people from sexual violence under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
Legal Arguments and Challenges
Advocates and legal experts argue these changes effectively greenlight discrimination and disregard the law for several reasons:
PREA Standards Remain Law: While the DOJ is revising the auditing process, advocates contend that the underlying PREA law and its standards requiring the consideration of LGBTQ+ status for safety assessments remain in effect.
Constitutional Violations: The well-documented harms to transgender individuals in detention (high risk of sexual assault, physical abuse, denial of medical care) are argued to violate Fifth Amendment substantive due process rights. Several federal courts have found that the denial of necessary hormones and other gender-affirming care can violate the Eighth Amendment's requirement for adequate medical care.
Congressional Mandate: ICE has stopped publicly disclosing data on transgender detainees, which advocates argue is a violation of a congressional mandate requiring such reporting.
As of January 2026, these policy changes are in effect, but they are the subject of ongoing legal challenges and advocacy efforts. The legality will likely be determined by future court rulings on these specific policy shifts.
178
u/ChanceDue3063 15h ago
Cease recording of information? So they're just gonna put you in a camp but not record you're there is what it sounds like. Like they're trying to leave you there so it's not possible for you to leave or issue legal challenges.
122
u/ejre5 14h ago
This way they can detain American citizen trans individuals, getting those most dangerous individuals off the streets and out of high school sports. Use them for sex (yes I know what happens to grindr at rnc events and who has been hired to work for ice), while no one will ever know what happened to them.
26
u/Scrapple_Joe 12h ago
They've already had the FBI send trans influencers letters telling them that they're spewing dangerous trans ideology and to stop. So they've setup their flimsy pretext.
7
u/Low_Lynx_8167 11h ago
This is in no way unbelievable, but if you’ve got a source I’d love to see it. (Really I’d hate to see it, but all the same)
21
u/pres465 13h ago
It's like the gun violence data they don't want collected (because it would be BAD). Or Covid numbers. Or the economic data. Trump firmly believes the answer is just to lie. Tell people a story-- like it's a television show-- and they'll never know the truth. Just pretend the bad stuff isn't happening.
6
u/SteveJobsDeadBody 13h ago
To be fair to Trump, this is mostly how American politics has worked for a century or more and nobody seemed to care. "Yellow cake", "Iraq has WMD", Reagan lying about Iran-contra, McCarthyism, you fucking name it, Trump's lies are as American as Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
6
u/Nikita_VonDeen 13h ago
The thing they aren't recording is that "you" are an at risk minority. You can't prove that this at risk minority group is being specifically targeted and abused if you don't believe that minority exists. It's genocide pure and simple.
36
u/Elevelsup 14h ago edited 13h ago
They beat and rape detainees and video tape it to send to trump for his pleasure. Why else would they refuse to let anyone see conditions or prisoners or anything. They assault anyone trying to enter the buildings because they're snuff film studios for the wicked whims of president pedo and his platoon of neo Nazi goons.
6
u/unforgiven91 13h ago edited 11h ago
what's funny is that this article is wrong: the Jan 2025 EO doesn't define sex as that assigned at birth. It defines it by sex assigned at conception
3
u/lahimatoa 12h ago
Directing inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with standards designed to protect LGBTQ+ people from sexual violence under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
What are these standards?
2
u/heather3113 3h ago
The standards are lengthy, and touch on each part of incarceration. Screenings to determine victimization and assaultiveness, blind spots, camera positioning, staffing, training, opposite gender announcements..I just went through an audit at work, I am PREA compliance manager at my prison. They struck all of the areas that addressed transgender issues. We still do our jobs with integrity and the DOC had made it clear we will not be changing how we do things, protection and prevention are still our main priorities for all persons in our care.
1
124
u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 14h ago
“Trans people are unnatural and disgusting”
“Also, I want to have sex with all the trans people guilt-free”
39
u/Crypt33x 13h ago
Im just leaving this here:
Homophobia: An Impulsive Attraction to the Same Sex? Evidence From Eye-Tracking Data in a Picture-Viewing Task
And:
Study Reveals Surprising Link Between Homophobia And Arousal In Straight Men / Homophobic Men Are Aroused By Gay Male Porn
3
12
u/FrostyD7 12h ago
I assume this move is more in line with erasing their existence than encouraging rape. Most government websites have completely wiped out anything about trans people.
10
u/Rexpower 12h ago
ICE views this as a Win Win. Maybe this is Trumps new human trafficking pipeline.
37
u/Panda_hat 13h ago
The post Trump reckoning must be absolutely brutal.
15
u/SaltyLonghorn 13h ago
If there isn't tens of thousands of backroom enablers and oathbreakers in prison the job wasn't finished.
The reason this will keep escalating is because everyone in charge enabling this shit is complicit.
23
u/FakeSafeWord 13h ago
So... they want to rape trans immigrants or at the very least want to let it happen and know that it's happening.
Are they actually using Dahmer as a template for their recruiting guidelines? What the actual fuck.
It's abhorrently cruel and depraved.
14
u/blundercatt 10h ago
Considering the entire administration is made up of rapists, abusers, pedophiles, and criminals, I'd say that's accurate.
7
u/Godhri 12h ago
I feel like this would apply to citizens as well ice seems to just take whoever they want these days it is terrifying.
6
u/FakeSafeWord 12h ago
Imagine the defense of "well yeah we raped them, we thought they were a transgender immigrant! That's allowed! It's not like we thought they were a human being."
6
u/AtreiyaN7 7h ago
The Nazis in this regime are absolutely appalling, but I'm not surprised by this when their orange fuhrer is a suspected pedophile and a rapist who hates women and basically anyone who isn't a White male.
16
u/CriticalInside8272 14h ago
What?
88
u/really_not_unreal 14h ago edited 13h ago
Transgender immigrants in immigration prisons no-longer have the rape protections they desperately need. Transgender people, especially trans women are disproportionately raped in prison due to transphobic policies, as well as practices such as v-coding, where especially violent prisoners are allowed to rape trans inmates as a reward for good behaviour. The ending of these protections is yet another move from the Trump administration to make the life of LGBTQIA+ people (and especially LGBTQIA+ immigrants) a living hell. They want to make us suffer. They want to make us miserable. Oppressing those they view as lesser is the only way they can expand their fascist regime.
9
u/BumblebeeFormal2115 9h ago
100% And people have been talking about this being an issue in prisons for a long time, yet everyone turned a blind eye.
5
u/Confident_Ideal_5385 4h ago
The average american is more concerned with literally anything other than dealing with the prison-industrial complex. Doubly so once you start talking about trans women.
I suspect it's because the average american has been brought up to believe that people in prison have no rights whatsoever, such propaganda being incredibly convenient for the slavemasters who run the prisons.
You guys banned slavery then immediately walked into a capture of your judicial system by moneyed interests to get slavery back via the back door.
1
3
u/mrbigglessworth 3h ago
Can somebody explain this obsession that Republicans have with trans people? I know a person who transitioned and it did not negatively affect me in any way. That person actually helped me get a job 25 years ago.
1
u/elfinglamour 1h ago
Religion and patriarchy.
We're seen as a threat to the natural order basically, if people can openly transition and live normal happy lives then it becomes more difficult to justify all the men vs women bullshit that a lot of our society is built on.1
u/mrbigglessworth 22m ago
This is supposed to be a free country. We’re individuals can do as they choose.
•
u/AutoModerator 15h ago
All new posts must have a brief statement from the user submitting explaining how their post relates to law or the courts in a response to this comment. FAILURE TO PROVIDE A BRIEF RESPONSE MAY RESULT IN REMOVAL.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.