According to a new autopsy, transgender asylum seeker Roxsana Hernandez was beaten before her death

The body of a transgender asylum seeker who died after falling ill while he was being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement was found with evidence of physical abuse, according to an independent autopsy published this week.

Roxsana Hernandez Rodriguez, HIV-positive, died a few weeks after arriving in the United States from Honduras after being introduced at the San Ysidro entry point in May. While in custody at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico, she developed severe diarrhea and vomiting and was transferred to a hospital, according to the autopsy.

The autopsy was performed by Kris Sperry, a former Chief Forensic Physician from Georgia who resigned in 2015 after the Atlanta Journal Constitution detailed his work as a private forensic scientist and investigated his potential for conflict. Interest with its official title.

The autopsy was part of a request for an "unwarranted death declaration" filed by the Transgender Law Center on behalf of Hernandez and her family, prior to a lawsuit that she intends to initiate against federal immigration agencies such as ICE and Customs and Border Protection. According to the act of claim, the autopsy shows that Mr. Hernandez "suffered physical assault and ill-treatment while in detention".

Roxsana Hernandez Rodriguez.

The autopsy revealed that Hernandez was severely bruised on the rib cage and was deeply contorted in the back, which was "indicative of beatings and / or kicks and possible blows with a blunt object". , which, he said, were typical of handcuffs.

"According to the observations of the other detainees accompanying Mrs. Hernandez Rodriguez, the episodes of diarrhea and vomiting persisted for several days without evaluation or medical treatment, until she was seriously ill," Sperry writes in his report.

Lynly Egyes, General Counsel of the Transgender Law Center, described Hernandez's death as "absolute prevention."

ICE declined to comment on the details of the independent autopsy report.

"A review of Hernandez's death by health professionals from the ICE Health Corps confirmed that she was suffering from a history of untreated HIV," said spokeswoman Danielle Bennett in a statement. . "At no point did the medical staff treating Ms. Hernandez, at the Cibola General Hospital or the Lovelace Medical Center, raise any issue of suspicion of physical abuse."

In a statement aired about her death in May, the agency said she was the sixth inmate in her custody since October 2017. Medical staff at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque had determined that she was in prison. she had died as a result of a cardiac arrest.

Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for CoreCivic, who runs the Cibola County Penitentiary Center, said Hernandez was held at the center for only 12 hours.

"We are also committed to creating a safe environment for transgender prisoners," she said in a statement, noting that ICE was monitoring "conditions and contractual execution" in detention centers.

R. Andrew Free, a lawyer representing Hernandez's family, stated that he believed that the alleged ill-treatment occurred at the Cibola County Penitentiary Center.

"We believe that, after the interviews, this abuse of this type would certainly have been noticed by the people who surround it," said Free. "And based on his medical care, we think health care providers would have noticed the abuse, leaving a place where there is always a vacuum of information. . . Cibola. "

The family issued a statement through Free and the Transgender Law Center.

"Roxsana Hernandez was our sister and it was an injustice to have her die as she did," the statement said. "For us, his closest family is extremely painful to manage. She left with the dream of opening a beauty salon and hopes to help us. She fled Honduras because here transgender people are discriminated against. She left with the hope of living a better life. "

Conditions in private prisons have been increasingly monitored in recent years. In October, ICE released a report detailing the significant problems faced in a large detention center run by the GEO Group in California. The violations included cells with knots hanging from the vents, detainees who lost teeth due to lack of dental care, and a disabled detainee left alone in a wheelchair for nine days.

Hernandez was part of a migrant caravan organized by the Pueblo Sin Fronteras group that arrived in early May. According to BuzzFeed, the group said that she had been detained for the first time in a holding cell known as a cooler because of its icy climate.

She told BuzzFeed that she had fled Honduras to flee the discrimination and violence she faced as a transgender woman.

"The trans people in my neighborhood are killed and cut into pieces and thrown into sacks of potatoes," she told the branch. "I'm afraid of that."

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