A second federal detention facility for transgender immigrants will open later this year in Texas.
The privately-run 36-bed facility for transgender detainees is currently under construction in Alvarado, Texas, which is southwest of Dallas. According to a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the facility will house a total of 700 detainees and is set to open in November.
The Cleburne-Times Review reported that the project will cost an estimated $42 million and generate more than 100 new jobs in Johnson County.
Johnson County Commissioner Jerry Stringer said the facility will be a pass-through center for illegal immigrants but not for “hardened criminals.”
“My understanding is that this is where they will be housed while they are processed and then sent back to where they came from,” Stringer said at the groundbreaking Monday.
Another space set aside in a Santa Ana, California city jail reportedly held 28 transgender women last week, according to the agency. However, that facility is set to close in 2020 after the city council voted not to renew the contract to provide the beds in the city jail to ICE.
ICE issued new guidelines in June 2015 to help personnel care for transgender immigrants being detained. Those guidelines mandate that detainees reveal their gender identity when brought into detention facilities. Then it is up to ICE to make accommodations based on the persons’ preferences.
The Human Rights Watch released a report in March that found more than half of the transgender women held in immigration detention were held in mens’ facilities at some point. Half of those transgender women were also at some point put in solitary confinement for their protection.
