In twin moves attacking transgender detainees and prisoners, new guidance from the Trump administration strips away safeguards against rape and other protections for trans people in custody in U.S. prisons and Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.

The Department of Homeland Security instituted this revised guidance this month for several privately-run ICE facilities, while the Department of Justice (DOJ) is moving to eliminate rules protecting LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons, a shift advocates are calling “reckless and dangerous.” 

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At least six ICE detention facilities, most run by private prison companies, have newly modified government contracts to strip away safeguards against rape and other protections for trans detainees rounded up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, The American Prospect reports.

As of January 5, multiple detention centers revoked safety measures and halted medical care for trans prisoners in Arizona, New Mexico, Georgia, and at least two facilities in Texas.

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A third in Laredo, Texas, run by CoreCivic, has a contract modification stating “all transgender guidance provided here is hereby rescinded,” but doesn’t specify what the guidance included.

The revised contracts cite Trump’s executive order “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism” as the reason for the changes, which also include a revocation of all diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility language. 

Similar contract modifications erasing trans protections from multiple immigration prisons were made last year, including at the Aurora ICE detention center in Colorado, the Buffalo Service Processing Center in New York, and the Broward Transitional Center in Florida.

As of January 8, there were 68,990 people in ICE detention facilities, a record high.

According to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, 650,000 immigrants have been arrested, imprisoned, and deported from the U.S. so far in the Trump administration purge. Noem claims 2 million more immigrants and asylum seekers have left the country voluntarily; an amount that’s highly questionable.

The number of trans people held by ICE is unknown, following the Department of Homeland Security’s order last year to stop collecting or publishing that data.

The last report, published on January 12, 2025, counted 47 transgender people in ICE detention, although that number is likely low because not every trans person self-identifies for reasons of safety, advocates say. The number of trans prisoners has likely grown over the last year as the Trump administration pursues its goal of 1 million deportations annually.

Trans asylum seekers are typically in the U.S. because they’ve already endured “incredibly high levels of sexual assault,” repeated beatings, and attempted murder in their home countries, said Bridget Crawford, director of law and policy at Immigration Equality, about the effect of the revised trans guidance. “They’ve endured just the most horrific persecution you can imagine.”

“They’re coming here for protection, and they find themselves in immigration detention, which by law cannot be punitive, but we see that it is,” she said. 

Approximately 40% of trans prisoners reported they had endured sexual abuse in ICE detention facilities, compared to 14% of gay, lesbian, and bisexual prisoners, and 3.1% of non-LGBTQ+ people. This finding by the Obama administration in 2014 was calculated years before Trump stripped away protections and made trans animus and erasure a central part of his second-term agenda.

Trump has taken that animus as well to the U.S. prison system.

In December, the Justice Department issued a memo to auditors charged with tracking sexual abuse in federal prisons stating, “effective immediately,” prisons and jails will no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to shield LGBTQ+ people from harassment, abuse, and rape, the Guardian reported.

The memo also directed inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with those protections as the department formally updates the rules.  

The directive relates to regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), a federal law passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, which addresses high levels of violence against LGBTQ+ people in prisons and jails in the U.S. PREA applies to all correctional facilities in the country.

Like the ICE detention facility contracts, the DOJ memo also cited Trump’s “restoring biological truth” executive order as the reason for the change.

In April, the Trump administration defunded the National PREA Resource Center, which provided federally funded training and technical assistance to states and localities, serving as a “single-stop resource” for those charged with implementing the congressional mandate addressing violence against incarcerated LGBTQ+ people.

“The proposed revisions to the PREA standards will lead to increased chaos and violence inside prisons and jails, placing staff and incarcerated people in greater danger,” said Linda McFarlane, executive director of human rights group Just Detention International. “It will allow rapists to act with impunity. And it is already sowing confusion among prison leaders, who have worked for more than a decade to put in place commonsense rules to end prisoner rape.”

“It’s sickening,” she added.

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