Receiving Body
United Nations
Report Type
Submission to the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (IE SOGI), February 14, 2025
Tags
Inside for-profit immigration detention centers, the U.S. government wields solitary confinement, sexual abuse and harassment, and denial of medical care against forcibly displaced LGBTQ+ people—sometimes with deadly consequences. Retaliation from prison officials for speaking out against abuse is common. And harm is compounded for LGBTQ+ people with other marginalized identities that make them targets for abuse, including racial, ethnic, and religious minorities and those with disabilities. Their mistreatment inside U.S. detention centers exacerbates trauma from persecution in countries of origin and transit, subjecting forcibly displaced people to the same harm they sought to escape.
Alongside grassroots partners, RFK Human Rights delivered this written submission to the United Nations Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in preparation for a 2025 report and presentation to the United Nations Human Right Council. It describes forms of violence, discrimination, prejudicial treatment, and other human rights violations that LGBTQ+ forcibly displaced people experience in U.S. immigration detention centers.
What solutions exist?
The federal government can immediately release LGBTQ+ people from immigration detention and cease further detention of them pending immigration proceedings.
Local and state legislatures can pass laws that protect forcibly displaced LGBTQ+ people from abuses in immigration detention, including bans on private prison contracts with local jails, prohibitions on using local and state resources for federal immigration enforcement, and establishing local and state rights to legal counsel in immigration proceedings.
How can I get involved?
Read this submission to learn what’s really going on in immigration detention.
Share this information with your networks.
Join and support an organization near you that is working to end immigration detention.
February 14, 2025
Submission to the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Human rights organizations urge United Nations to denounce abuse of LGBTQ+ people in immigration detention facilities
Submission Partners
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Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative
Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative is dedicated to providing vital support and resources to Black LGBTQ+ immigrants who face unique and multifaceted challenges.
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Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project
The Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) uses leadership development and organizing to address the ways in which trans and queer Black immigrants are criminalized by the criminal law and immigration system, and marginalized in the broader immigrant community.
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Immigration Equality
For 30 years, Immigration Equality has worked to secure safe haven, freedom, and equality for the LGBTQ and HIV-positive communities. Through direct legal services, policy advocacy, and impact litigation, we support immigrants who face discrimination based on who they are and whom they love.
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Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network
The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) provides free immigration legal and social services to immigrant children and to adults in immigration detention.
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Sanctuary New Orleans Abolition Project
SNAP is a transgender-led advocacy project to prevent the systemic abuse of LGBTQI+ systems-impacted people in greater New Orleans.
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Transgender Law Center
Transgender Law Center is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. Since 2002 we’ve been organizing, assisting, informing and empowering thousands of individual community members towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for liberation.