Transgender Asylum-Seeker Who Died In ICE Custody Was Beaten, Autopsy Shows
Roxsana Hernández Rodriguez had "deep bruises" on her body and died of dehydration, an independent autopsy found.
A transgender asylum-seeker who fell sick and died while being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement may have been beaten while in federal custody, according to an independent autopsy report released this week.
The body of 33-year-old trans woman Roxsana Hernández Rodriguez was marked by “deep bruises” and “contusions” consistent with “blows and/or kicks and possible strikes with a blunt object,” The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing the autopsy commissioned by Hernández’s family. Her wrists showed signs of extensive hemorrhaging, which the report said was “typical of handcuff injuries.”
The autopsy shows Hernández “endured physical assault and abuse while in custody,” said the California-based Transgender Law Center, which, along with other activist groups, plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against ICE and other federal immigration agencies on behalf of Hernández’s family. The report also shows that Hernández, who was HIV-positive, died from “severe complications of dehydration” exacerbated by HIV infection.
“People need to know that she died of dehydration,” Lynly Egyes, director of litigation for the Transgender Law Center, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “People need to know that her death was preventable.”
They murdered her. Her blood is in their hands.
Say it with me: transphobia is violence
