The case of Shakira Galíndez highlights a growing crisis for trans Venezuelan asylum seekers in the U.S.

This post is part of Global Voices’ June 2026 Spotlight series, “Gender Diversity.” This series offers insight into gender diversity and how it is being threatened, protected, and preserved around the world. You can support this coverage by donating here. When Shakira Galíndez appeared for her immigration proceedings at the New York City Federal Plaza on September 15, 2025, she was trying to comply with the U.S. legal process. Instead, she was immediately detained by ICE. Since then, the 30-year-old Venezuelan transgender woman has spent months moving through the U.S. immigration detention system while fighting to avoid deportation. Her story extends beyond herself: it includes the family and friends affected by her arbitrary detention, while underscoring the growing disparity between the protections formally guaranteed to vulnerable refugees and the conditions they frequently encounter upon arrival. For many LGBTQ+ Venezuelans, migration is often a matter of survival. Faced with discrimination, criminalization, violence, exclusion from employment, barriers to healthcare, and the absence of legal recognition of their identities, many transgender and gender-diverse Venezuelans are forced to leave their homes in search of safety and dignity. Galíndez is a 30-year-old transgender woman from Yaracuy, Venezuela. She arrived in the United States seeking asylum after fleeing conditions that made it increasingly difficult to live safely as a trans woman in her country of origin. Like many asylum seekers, she entered a legal process designed to evaluate her claim and determine whether returning her to Venezuela would expose her to harm. She was arrested while attending an immigration hearing and subsequently transferred through multiple detention facilities. Today, she remains in immigration detention in LaSalle Detention Center and faces the possibility of deportation back to Venezuela. Her case exposes a broader contradiction at the heart of the U.S. immigration detention system. Since 2015, federal agencies have acknowledged that transgender individuals in detention face unique risks. ICE detention standards and policies influenced by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) recognize that housing decisions involving transgender people should be made on a case-by-case basis, with particular attention to gender identity, especially because transgender inmates reported higher levels of staff sexual misconduct in prisons (17 percent) and jails (23 percent). On paper, these protections exist. In practice, however, advocates and human rights organizations have repeatedly documented situations in which transgender migrants remain exposed to isolation, mistreatment, inadequate healthcare, or detention conditions that fail to reflect their gender identity. Conditions worsened during Donald Trump’s second term, with reported increases in these types of violations. One of his first presidential actions was an executive order against what he termed “gender ideology extremism,” mandating federal recognition of only two sexes, placing transgender women in men’s prisons, and cutting funding of gender-affirming care for prisoners. Shakira’s experience is only part of this broader pattern. The prolonged nature of her detention, transfers between facilities, and her placement within a men’s detention environment have raised serious concerns among family, friends, and advocates working on her behalf. The reports of isolation are particularly alarming. Galíndez claims she was held in solitary confinement for more than a month before requesting to be moved into the general prison population, despite the risks this entailed. Nearly 90 percent of incarcerated transgender people have been held in solitary confinement in prison, according to a recent study — a practice that is classified as torture by human rights experts. Regardless of the legal outcome of Galíndez’s asylum claim, these conditions illustrate how detention itself can become a source of harm for transgender migrants. For Galíndez, deportation would mean returning to a country where transgender people continue to face significant structural barriers. Venezuela currently lacks a comprehensive legal framework recognizing gender identity or protecting transgender people from discrimination. Civil society organizations have documented persistent patterns of violence, social exclusion, and barriers to accessing healthcare, employment, and legal recognition. Across the Americas, Venezuela’s political, economic, and humanitarian crisis has generated one of the largest displacement movements in the world. Within that displaced population, LGBTQ+ people often face additional layers of vulnerability. They may experience family rejection, homelessness, barriers to employment, exploitation, and targeted violence both before and during migration. This reality is particularly important when evaluating asylum claims. In a 2020 report, ReliefWeb underscored how the displacement of LGBTQ+ Venezuelans forms one of the most complex layers of an already deep migration crisis, and that the many risks they are exposed to do not end with migration. As the report explains: Most of the [LGBTQ+ population] face or have faced situations of exploitation, abuse, and inequality, among other forms of violence. In addition, discrimination and xenophobic attitudes have affected them in different ways. For example, trans women have experienced a greater violation of their rights and lack of protection, while LGB people have had to hide their sexual orientation to avoid being discriminated against. The purpose of asylum law is to provide protection to individuals who have a well-founded fear of persecution based on factors such as political opinion, religion, nationality, race, or membership in a particular social group. Transgender individuals fleeing systemic discrimination and violence often seek protection under this framework because returning home may expose them to serious risks. “Being queer in Venezuela has meant growing up under the constant threat of exclusion, corrective violence, and abandonment,” Andrés Perez, a non-binary activist exiled in Colombia, explains to Global Voices via message. ”For many people in the LGBTQIA+ community, migrating is not a decision about the future, but a way to protect our lives in the present.” Shakira’s case is not occurring in isolation. It echoes concerns raised in the case of Andry Hernández Romero, another Venezuelan LGBTQ+ migrant whose experience drew attention from advocates and human rights organizations due to his transfer to CECOT, El Salvador’s infamous prison, and subsequent deportation to Venezuela. Although their circumstances differ, both cases illustrate a troubling reality: LGBTQ+ Venezuelans seeking protection in the United States can find themselves navigating systems that fail to adequately recognize their vulnerabilities. As her case continues, advocates are calling for her release from detention and for a fair evaluation of her asylum claim. Their demands are rooted in a simple principle: people who seek protection from persecution should not be subjected to conditions that place them at further risk.