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Autopsy Reveals Trans Asylum Seeker in ICE Custody Was Assaulted Before Death

HeadlineNov 27, 2018

An autopsy released Monday reveals that Roxsana Hernández Rodriguez, a 33-year-old Honduran transgender woman who died while in ICE custody in May, was physically assaulted prior to her death. Hernández Rodriguez arrived in the United States seeking asylum in early May of this year, after traveling with a Central American caravan. She was fleeing persecution and had survived a gang rape in Honduras. At the time of her death, ICE said she died of dehydration and complications related to HIV. In an interview with The Daily Beast, her family’s lawyer Andrew Free said, “She journeyed thousands of miles fleeing persecution and torture at home only to be met with neglect and torture in this country’s for-profit human cages.” She was held in a detention center run by CoreCivic, the second-largest private prison company in the United States.

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