Against Elizabeth! Bond Funds For Trans Girls

EDIT: Great news! Alithú’s bond has been PAID and she has been released! She is back in her community and working with her lawyer on getting her asylum proceedings on-track as soon as possible. QDEP is proud to have been able to provide for Alithú financially during her time of need and wishes her the best in her legal battle ahead! Un abrazo! ABOUT THE QUEER DETAINEE EMPOWERMENT PROJECT (QDEP) The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project assists folks coming out of immigration detention in securing structural, health/wellness, educational, legal, and emotional support and services. We work to organize around the structural barriers and state violence that LGBTQI detainee/undocumented folks face related to their immigration status, race, sexuality, and gender expression/ identity. ABOUT THE EVENT - Performances - This event will be led and performed by exclusively by QDEP members, including transfeminine folks. This event will also feature our members art, which will be on display and will be for sale. QDEP’s commitment to a transfeminist liberation includes making time and space for other trans women to express themselves as fully and authentically as possible. - Fundraiser - Money raised at the event will go towards QDEP’s ongoing bond fund specifically designated for incarcerated trans women across the country. This is an ongoing project and we want to take this opportunity to further develop the grassroots social safety nets so needed by our transgender sisters of color. Why is this important? At any given time, the United States holds 34,000 folks in detention, of that 34,000, the US holds scores of transgender women in immigration detention; including many who have fled to the US seeking protection from torture, sexual violence, and other forms of persecution in their home countries related to their gender identity or gender expression. Once they arrive, the women are locked up for months or even years at a time in jails or prison-like detention centers as they wait for a court to adjudicate their asylum claims, or to be deported for civil immigration violations. While in detention, many experience sexual assault and other forms of abuse and ill-treatment, including denial of access to necessary medical care. Transgender women are 15 times more likely to experience sexual assault than their cisgendered heterosexual counterparts; while GBQ men held in detention facilities are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than their heterosexual counterparts. Furthermore, most transgender women in immigration detention are housed either in the general male population or in solitary confinement, which is recognized as a form of torture (2016, HRW). According to a recent report by Detention Watch Network, “guaranteed minimums are contractual provisions that obligate ICE to pay for a minimum number of immigration detention beds at specific facilities. Because guaranteed minimums require payment to private contractors whether beds are filled or not, they function as local lockup quotas, incentivizing ICE to fill detention beds because of the contract stipulation.” Between incredibly high bonds, the GBT pod, and the bed quota minimum guarantee/local quota at Elizabeth Detention Center, it has become increasingly unattainable for transgender women and GBQ men to get out of the detention center. QDEP believes that all of these detention centers (or detention prisons, as we call them) violate basic human rights, which is why no human is fit to be held in detention. We stand by our trans sisters who face these imminent threats. - How can we help? - This event, and QDEP in general, works to pay the bonds of trans and queer folks who are incarcerated in immigration detention centers. The lowest bonds that we’ve been seeing have been $7,500 nationally, while the highest bonds have been $25,000 and up to $60,000 bonds. T-shirts and drinks will be available for purchase, with all proceeds going to the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project’s ongoing trans prisoner bond fund. Entrance is still a $5 – $20 suggested donation, though nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. Any questions, requests, or volunteering interests should be directed to Georgina at georgina@qdep.org