Attorneys for transgender asylum seeker detained in Portland push for release



Attorneys for O-J-M, a 24-year-old transgender woman detained on Monday, have asked that she be released on bail pending further proceedings.

PORTLAND, Ore. — In a series of court filings, attorneys for a transgender asylum seeker from Mexico detained in Portland this week argued for her transfer back to Oregon and her release on bail, arguing that federal authorities have failed to act “in good faith.”

The 24-year-old asylum seeker, identified only as O-J-M, is currently held in a Tacoma detention center, having been transferred there by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The latest filing from O-J-M’s lawyer details a confusing, opaque and at times Kafkaesque process by which federal immigration authorities have snatched up even immigrants who are complying with government procedures.

“Respondents manipulated the immigration system to achieve what the law plainly did not allow in violation of their duty: O-J-M-’s detention and rapid expulsion without due process of law. ‘It is procedure that spells much of the difference between rule by law and rule by whim or caprice,'” attorneys at the Innovation Law Lab argued Friday, quoting from a U.S. Supreme Court concurrence.

A transcript from O-J-M’s asylum hearing on Monday shows that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security moved to dismiss her asylum case. This was explained to O-J-M, who showed clear confusion, as being an end to the government’s attempts to remove her.

“The Department won’t be seeking to remove you back to your home country if you accept the dismissal,” the immigration judge says in the transcript. “Do you want to accept the dismissal so you’re not in removal proceedings?”

O-J-M then agreed, and the judge granted the motion. The asylum seeker was then excused and walked out of the courtroom.

A legal observer who was outside the courtroom said that she saw waiting ICE officers, their faces covered, detain O-J-M. One of the officers had told her that he would arrest her if she interfered, the observer wrote in a supporting declaration.

Another declaration, this one provided by immigration attorney Kathleen Pritchard, shows that she arrived at the ICE office on Macadam Avenue in Portland within about 15 minutes of ICE agents leaving with O-J-M. She said she was made to wait for four hours to see the woman.

Pritchard was only finally allowed to see O-J-M after being told by ICE that the asylum seeker was being “served some documents.” At 1:25 p.m., she said she was able to meet with the asylum seeker. Though she tried to argue for O-J-M’s release on bail, Pritchard said an ICE officer told her that the woman was subject to mandatory detention.

“I raised the fact that O-J-M is a trans woman and articulated that I was concerned for her safety if she were to be detained in ICE custody, and Officer Marshall replied, ‘She isn’t the first,'” Pritchard wrote. “I asked whether O-J-M would be housed with male or female detainees and Officer Marshall stated that he did not know, and that someone in Tacoma would make that determination.”

After dealing with ICE for hours, Pritchard said she informed the same Officer Marshall around 3 p.m. that her office had filed a habeas petition on O-J-M’s behalf. But by then, Marshall said that O-J-M was on her way to the Tacoma processing center.

RELATED: Second asylum seeker detained following courthouse arrest in Portland

‘This isn’t where you belong’

One of the declarations included in Friday’s court filings is from O-J-M, arguing in support of being released on bail pending habeas proceedings.

According to the filing, O-J-M grew up in Michoacan, Mexico. In 2021, she describes being kidnapped by a cartel called the Knights Templar, who raped and threatened to kill her because she identified as a trans woman.

“I believe they may have also targeted me because they believed that I am gay,” O-J-M wrote.

She said she decided to flee to the U.S., because attacks on LGBTQ+ people in Mexico were carried out with impunity. She arrived at the border in September 2023 where she was briefly detained. There’s no indication that she has any criminal record in either Mexico or the U.S.

O-M-J said she was released and told to report to the ICE offices in Medford because she has family in southern Oregon. Her first hearing was set for July 7, 2025, she said.

In the intervening years, O-M-J attended multiple ICE check-ins. She was living in Vancouver, having moved to the Portland area both for family and resources for the trans community, she said.

“It is really hard for me to speak about the severe abuse and violence I experienced in Mexico, especially because I am afraid people will dismiss me because of my gender identity,” O-M-J wrote. “I have never lived in a place with resources that support the trans community. It is hard for me to follow and understand the process of seeking asylum because I am functionally illiterate.”

O-M-J filed for asylum in February, which resulted in Monday’s scheduled hearing. She described feeling relief when the judge dismissed her cause, having told her that the government was no longer seeking to remove her.

“However, as I entered the hallway to get to the elevators, several men that had their faces covered surrounded me and grabbed me,” O-M-J wrote. “Immediately I was reminded of when armed men kidnapped me (in) Mexico and I felt incredibly afraid.”

At the ICE offices, O-M-J said she was made to sign a document despite protesting that she could not understand what it said.

After being transferred up to Tacoma, O-M-J described arriving at a facility for male detainees.

“While I was still wearing the pink jacket I’d worn to court, some male detainees passed by the place where I was being processed and yelled out at me; one of them told me something to the effect of ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, this isn’t where you belong,'” O-M-J wrote.

The asylum seeker said she was given the option of a shower with the male detainees, which she refused.

“I felt really self-conscious and unsafe, and I was afraid that the male detainees would harass or assault me,” O-M-J.

Since then, O-M-J said that she’s been held in solitary confinement because she feared being placed with the male detainees. She reported difficulty sleeping due to the noise of the detention center and her own racing thoughts.

“I cannot believe this is happening to me. I came to the United States to be safe and free,” O-M-J concluded. “When I arrived to Oregon, it was the first time that I have felt that I belonged anywhere. Especially after moving to the Portland area, I saw people from different places walking freely and unafraid … I want to go back to that, to where I felt safe to be myself for the first time in my life.”

In its latest court filings, DHS has assured the court that O-J-M will not be immediately deported. Her attorneys argue that immigration authorities have violated her right to due process and should be released on bail while her habeas petition is still pending adjudication.

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