ICE Building LGBT-Friendly Detainment Center in Texas: Activists Still Unsatisfied

A new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainment center opening in the small town of Alvarado, Texas, this November will feature a unit specifically designed for transgender detainees, according to immigration officials.

The $42 million facility will house up to 700 individuals and act as a holding and processing center for illegal aliens and others detained for immigration related issues. Included in this total is funding to secure legal assistance and resources for transgender detainees.

LGBT activists claim transgender detainees face a high risk of assault and discrimination because officials assign them to facilities based on their biological gender instead of their chosen gender identity. The new Texas detainment center is ICE’s solution to the problem

Despite the new facility assigning rooms based on identity, some activists claim that this policy fails to go far enough. Illustrating the difficulties inherent in the issue, they believe any type of detention is “a step in the wrong direction.” Isa Noyola, Director of Programs at the Transgender Law Center, told Fusion that “[ICE] is talking about the new detention center as if they are providing a service to the community, and they’re not.” Rather, activists like Noyola propose that ICE release all immigrants who identify as LGBT and provide local, non-secured community housing friendly to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Fusion goes beyond providing amnesty proponents like Noyola a platform for their agenda; they also actively advance such rhetoric. In the same article, the news organization expressed concern over the detention center’s location in Johnson County, Texas.

The reporter noted that “many of the elected officials in the city of Alvarado and in Johnson County pride themselves in their conservative values” and that “more than 25,000 of the county’s votes went to Republican candidates in the latest election.” Rural Texas votes in large numbers for candidates who stand for enforcing American immigration law—something that open-border proponents find unacceptable.

Perhaps Texans reject amnesty-promoting politicians because the state already bears a disproportionately large burden of the overall cost imposed by illegal immigration. Nearly 2 million of the United States’ estimated 12 million illegal aliens reside in the state, costing taxpayers nearly $9 billion annually. The Texas Department of Public Safety also recently released data detailing the arrests of 190,000 criminal aliens for a total of 507,000 charges since June 1, 2011.

Americans already have little say over if or where ICE builds a detention center in their state or releases illegal aliens into their communities. Further surrendering to the politically correct crowd’s demands without the consent of the governed adds to this unjust burden. While reports of any detained person being assaulted is a concerning problem that needs to be remedied, reducing security based solely on unverifiable gender and sexual identity claims is a recipe for disaster. By immediately releasing all illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who claim LGBT status, immigration officials would encourage a dramatic increase in false claims made by those who are eager to circumvent our laws.