‘They Were Abusing Us the Whole Way’: A Tough Path for Gay and Trans Migrants

When the Isrealis oppress the Palestinians I don't see the left proclaim the solution is for other countries to absorb the oppressed Palestinians. They demand Israel up their game, and use public shaming and serious denouncement to help it along. I hear so much hatred towards that country and Jews in general which the poor treatment of Palestinians is used as an excuse. Any reason why when Hispanics, blacks and Muslims oppress people there is so little judgment, demands and anger and the oppressor but instead the west is supposed to take in the oppressed people? It's ironic people bellow about "white supremacy" but the solution to poor human rights among non-whites is always to burden whites with the problem not to demand better behavior from the oppressor. There is also shockingly little judgment on the oppressors and their culture, unlike when the oppressor is white.

When liberals stop demanding open borders in the name of Christianity then they can complain about alleged anti Christian bigotry.

That's not true. Canada has strict immigration laws.

"In Central America and Mexico, “almost everyone is Catholic, and so the machismo and religious sensibilities provoke attacks against people who break gender norms.”" What a peculiar assessment. Would you say that about Ireland, another predominantly Catholic country? Or Italy? Or Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand, all of which have large Catholic populations? It sounds to me like a lazy sectarian slur that ought to have been challenged by the reporter.

Honestly, I am not sure that things are going to be much better for them here. The hetero community is so against them and so many in the Gay and Lesbian community have been radicalized against them here as well. I have seen so many Gays and Lesbians expressing such trans-phobic remarks recently on the gay sites and trying to force them out of the community, look at what happened at the London Pride Parade and it really makes you wonder. It breaks my heart a little more every time I see a member of the gay community denigrating trans people. It seems to me at this point in time politically we need to band together stronger and instead we are fragmenting more and more.

I don’t think your status as a migrant seeking asylum should be affected by your being LBGT, for or against. That being said, if I were crossing the border, I wouldn’t bring it up.

This story doesn’t make sense. Why are they not going to Guadalajara, Mexico where it’s the San Francisco of Mexico with legal gay marriage and is quite gay accommodating. Many American gays vacation there because of its reputation as being so gay friendly and its gay life. Merida, and even Mexico City is very gay friendly with lots of resource for LGBT as well. Why come all the way to the U.S. border?

To all the commentators who don't think that these transgender women should be granted asylum, I have to ask: did you even read the article? If you did read it and still feel the same way, I think you're afraid of transgender people.

How frightening it is to be reminded of "man's inhumanity to man." For all our alleged social evolution, education, and religion, in some instances we behave even worse than rabid animals.

Most Americans welcome legal immigrants, but not illegal aliens. US laws allow foreigners (aliens) to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally (i.e., illegal aliens) and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too. We cannot afford to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al. It is therefore utterly impossible for US taxpayers to support the millions of foreigners who would like to come to the US. The cruelty lies not in detaining and deporting illegal aliens, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching migrants how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, abuse, etc. Abolishing ICE makes sense only to advocates of open borders, a policy no nation will ever approve. We will lose the mid-terms and 2020 elections if open borders becomes part of the Democratic platform.

Our American LGBT Organizations MUST unite and fight the horrible news in this article.

Re: described humiliation by guards Little people will be tyrants. It's wherever they know they can get away with it.

Correct me if I am wrong, but there are many LGBT people living happily south of the USA. Are we to believe that immigration laws do not apply to any LGBT people? What other large groups could be substituted for LGBT? How about the Dahlits of India? Surely, virtually every African person is eligible for asylum too, would that be correct? I just don't get the premise of the article, which is why I am looking for clarification.

I assume, then, that Mexico doesn't recognize trans women as women. Surely that's a human rights violation. Becoming transgendered is a medical procedure. Human beings have a right to health care.

I'm with all the other commentators who believe that only people I sympathize with should have their treatment labeled as abuse. There are so many sad stories in the world, ,sympathy must be rationed to those who are deserving of it.

Why has the subject of sexuality become so dominant in liberal media? Living is made up of many parts, of which things that revolve around sex should play a small part. Sex is primarily for reproduction. If that were not the case then there would only be one type of animal or human and we would reproduce by dividing, like bacteria. Let us concentrate on the issues that really matter. Whom we choose to mate with or rather we feel masculine or feminine should be a personal issue and not shared.

We are a country of laws, and a country of human rights and potential. Our amnesty laws say that these people have the chance to plead their case. Our humanity says these are our brothers and sisters. Welcome to America!

I feel the point of this article is to shame Americans into believing people escaping violence and persecution are worse off in America. Which is absurd because at the same time they tell us these people must come here to escape violence and persecution.

I wish the NY Times would stop using "LGBT" when they mean "transgender." This article is about transgender people, which is fine, but has nothing to say about gay men and lesbians. The stories and struggles of transgender people are important and need to be covered, but the headline should not indicate it as about the rest of the LGBT when it is not. Ny Times should really review their editorial policy about using LGBT and Transgender synonymously.

There are some pretty intolerant comments here regarding what's probably one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the world. Things change when you actually know someone who is transgender. I suppose that's the problem.

Wait! This is a major news story? Frankly, 99.99% of readers don't care. A more important story would be the approximate 11% of illegal aliens that are left-handed. They will be two-time losers as the United States ignores the plight of those in a right-hand world.

"For Many L.G.B.T. Migrants, North of the Border Is No Refuge" If The Onion did a parody of the New York Times this might very well be their headline

Sexual orientation has zero to do with immigration. Whatever you are apply for citizenship legally America grants over a million legal citizenship’s a year. Stop the nonsense!

These cases of transgendered migrants seem to be what the asylum laws had in mind – individuals persecuted by the government because of their affiliation with a special interest group. The vast majority of migrants do not fit into one of these groups, but transgendered people seem to meet these criteria. It is sad to say but all the rampant abuse of the entire dysfunctional system by other claimants that do not have a legitimate claim are ruining the chances for the truly legitimate cases – the cases that lack merit are souring many Americans on the whole dysfunctional process. Liberals and advocates want it all- asylum for all – transgendered individuals as well as parents with children and unaccompanied teenager and basically everybody – even though the overwhelming majority of migrants are not members of a minority group that face persecution by their government. If the advocate were reasonable and were only advocating for legitimate claimants, then I think that most Americans would accept that. But this is far from the case, and thus many American are getting migrant fatigue.

The Trump administration has this exactly right – they have tightened the policy as it was intended – before all of the abuse - they do not consider gang violence and domestic abuse as qualifiers for asylum, but LGBT migrants still can request asylum on the basis of persecution for their special interest group membership. Trump is being rational and real. He deserves much credit for this stance – for cracking down on the abuse of those without a claim as well as keeping the system open for those, such as LGBT migrants, who seems to have a legitimate claim. If only the migration advocates (and MSM) were as rational.

What makes this even sadder, is that even if people are granted asylum, they face the prospect of discrimination with no legal recourse due to the lack of federal anti-discrimination laws and the fact that anti-LGBT discrimination is still perfectly legal in many states. This country has a long, long, way to go. Wanting to come to the U.S. ought to be prima facie evidence of extreme desperation.

If people didn't flaunt their sexual orientation or whatever unusual gender identification trip they were currently into, perhaps they would stand a chance of getting into the USA. Sexual orientation should be a private matter, not one that is so visible and in everyone's face that it compels people to deal with it politically. Not to mention the problem of HIV that no one wants to import into the USA...a little common sense should enter into the very serious business of changing one's country of residence.

"In Central America and Mexico, “almost everyone is Catholic, and so the machismo and religious sensibilities provoke attacks against people who break gender norms.”" I know I am not the only who notices the irony of the Catholic Church - which has been at the forefront of irresponsibly encouraging "asylum seekers", illegal immigration and amnesty for one and all, no matter what the economic or sociological costs to the US - has also been responsible for driving LGBT people out of Latin America with its built-in homophobia and ignorant superstitions. What a sorry joke.

more crimes against humanity. It is just heartbreaking. Is the cruelty and violence because of climate change, propaganda or is someone putting chemicals in the water tables? I just can't understand the inhumane, evil behavior taking place so frequently today. Why the uptick in violence and hate now? What is driving it? I'd love to see some studies about what has occurred and why and what we can do to stop the cruelty and collective psychopathy happening in American and abroad.

I am not sure how they got in/ If they entered through our land borders, they should have been asked to plead for asylum from the Mexican or Canadian authorities. Or are these people who have over-stayed their visas?

I have never thought of America as an LGBT friendly country. It falls far short of many Western democracies in protecting the civil and human rights of LGBT people. Canada has identified LGBT people as a specific group of refugees/immigrants who require protection and consequently has accelerated admission of applicants who are LGBT. It's the decent thing to do - all refugees are fleeing unlivable situations in their home countries and as compassionate people we must do what we can.

We could invest money with strings that say: “Hi, we’re going to work to make sure you don’t bleed-out citizens into your neighbors by spending the money we would have spent on our walls and police in the form of aid and education. Big but, if you take our money, you are committing yourself to 20 years of being culturally mentored by us. Your problems are not racial and they are not biological: they are enculturated, learned problems. We are committing to cultural mentorship for the next 20 years with direct aid to build institutions to help you eradicate your cultural issues, namely corruption and prejudice, a lack of personal integrity that causes people in power to take money that isn’t theirs or to demand special treatment they don’t deserve. The only way this is changing is for you to catch the next generation and train it out of them.” Conservatives would never go for it because they are penny wise, pound foolish: they will be so ideologically offended that they have to subsidize another people’s problems they won’t realize that in the long run, the money is worth less than the benefits of that work to fix the source countries. Liberals would never go for it because they confuse a culture having any problems with having no moral authority at all. This is patently false: god knows we have our problems, but we are still the culture people want to get to, and that is saying something. We are in a position to mentor cultural stability, even if we have work to do, too.

My sympathies lie with political (not economic) refugees fleeing physical persecution. Welcoming (and integrating) migrants with a specific and justifiable fear of violence (think of the Yazidis of Iraq or the Rohingya of Myanmar) is the correct goal of U.S. immigration policy. Opening the doors to everyone who "identifies" a LBGTQIA+ is a recipe for abuse. More broadly, the NYT needs to re-evaluate its policy of promoting LBGTIA issues as aggressively as it has. There are a million other causes that get ignored but the liberal mullahs of the NYT can only see one variety of grievance. This is why the current administration will win in 2020.

Instead of endless and pointless war in the middle east and Afghanistan, perhaps the US should focus its strength and resources toward straightening out the violent and corrupt countries of our own continent. The best way to control immigration is to reduce the powerful forces which drive it.

History is overflowing with instances of cruelty towards various groups, but the hatred of the LGBTQ seems unique in its endurance. That's not to disregard the suffering of other demographics (such as my own black ancestors). Just about every group has stared down the barrel of some genocidal campaign. Some of these instances, like the Native Americans, are well known. Others, like the Ainu, are barely mentioned. But the animus towards the LGBTQ still seems unique in its constancy. The LGBTQ have been around long before the acronyms, bathroom bills or hormone therapies. They're not some neo-liberal fabrication. And the timeline of their persecution is essentially unbroken from earliest records up to this very second. It just NEVER. STOPS. And what serious person can claim that the LGBTQ enjoy equal protection under the law? The present administration has made multiple attempts to hamper even tracking their victimization in government surveys. That's not to mention the myriad pieces of political and/or legislative bigotry attempting to deny the LGBTQ community legal recourse when discriminated against in the workplace, housing, marketplace, etc. Some places are worse than others, but the sad fact is that humanity in general oppresses them out of sheer petty cruelty. The rationalizations for it are, in each and every case, absurd. The world (in the aggregate) just enjoys their suffering for reasons I cannot even begin to understand.

How unbelievably awful for these people! They have been traumatized and rejected repeatedly and by so many different factions. I certainly don’t have the answers to their host of problems, but simply providing a safe space for them while they seek asylum/wait for lawful entry into the US shouldn’t be all that difficult. That is if we saw them as human beings of equal measure as ourselves and cared enough to protect them. It seems that we don’t. Man’s inhumanity to man is never ending. I must admit that when I read the title of the article, I said out loud, “Wow, I’ve never even thought about those people.” Shame on me!

I can see the "America First" types who made sure the US did very little to help Jewish refugees from the Nazis are alive and well in this country, in the end the US took in a paltry number of Jews when there were serious and documented attempts by the Nazi government to let them migrate. I read some of the posts here and much the said was said about the Jews, where would we put them, what would they bring the country (HL Mencken had a particularly sharp response to that , went something like "you mean why should we let immigrate to the US a group of people who are hard working, dedicated to educating their young, when we have a large population of boobs who have neither, how could they compete?" The answer is the US is supposed to be better than that, and bringing up things like "try being Christian in a Muslim hell hole" is basically saying "why bother helping, when "our" people are persecuted, too is simply trying to deflect from the here and now. I wonder if in central America Pentacostal Christians were being targeted , if we would see the same thing, or would it be "those people should be in the US, they are suffering for their faith (which tells a lot about why LGBT asylum seekers face what they do, Middle America is just as bigoted and mean as what they faced at home).

El Salvador will only get worse, while Costa Rica and Panama continue to attract tourists and expats who decide to retire there, because they are nice places to live. What is the safest path for transgender people is an unknown, no matter what country. So everyone is safer getting out of El Salvador than staying there another five minutes. There seems to be a disconnect from Mexico to Central America for funding human rights. It is hard to fathom how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of education and training each one of these migrants would have to have to be successful in the new country of their choosing. The momentum of support from a church would go a long way, and that does not exist, while this is reduced to survival of the fittest. Cruel world.

“Leaving my country was such a hard decision,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of friends die in this fight, at the hands of the government, and people being beat and tortured. And this is happening at the hands of police officers. It’s sad, and it’s difficult, but you have to fight.” If this is not a reason to leave one's country and seek asylum I don't know what is. These same things happened in Nazi Germany and we refused to grant Jews asylum for some of the same reasons we're using now. Have we learned nothing? America may not be the best place to live as an LGBTQ individual but at least our government hasn't gotten to threatening the community with death for its gender preferences and sexuality. No one, no matter where he/she lives should be afraid for his/her life because of religion, sexual preferences, gender identity, or politics. And no one should have to live in fear of being murdered or imprisoned for refusing to join a gang, pay protection money to a gang, or attempting to raise a family. It takes courage to run away from one's home country. These people will try to make a good life for themselves and most will contribute to whatever country grants them asylum.

These are heartbreaking accounts of assault and terror visited upon LGBT people and other immigrants who have legitimate asylum claims in the U.S. These asylum-seekers' claims transposed on the face of homophobic and vengeful Trump, Sessions and Company should front-and-center for voters this November. The bottom line question is: are we a nation dedicated to the rule of law and compassion or the cold, corporate autocracy of Trump and Company?

LGBT migrants from Central America MUST denounce the Roman Catholic Church in their home countries and abroad.

The article repeatedly cites "lawyers and activists" as though that is an unbiased source of information. Also: “Why would we accept a person like you in our country?" seems like a very valid question. What does she bring with her? I did not see any mention of skills or talents of any kind in the article. Is being trans all she has going on for her? I understand that things are tough for her, but there are literally billions of people in the world who are living is worse conditions than they would have in America. We can't take them all.

All of them are always welcome in Canada

What is the answer? To let all LGBTs of the entire world who may feel persecuted into the US? Along with anyone who may be domestically abused? Is this possible to do? There would be many, many millions. We can't be the world's answer for all of the ills and problems that exist.