Trans asylum seeker details Guantánamo abuse in new ACLU-backed lawsuit
Feb 15, 2025·Location: NM
Country of origin: Brazil

Tarlis Marcone De Barros Gonçalves, a transgender asylum seeker from Brazil who fled threats to her life, entered the U.S. near El Paso on February 15, 2025, and was detained at the Otero County Processing Center before being flown to a U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In a declaration filed as part of the lawsuit Espinoza Escalona v. Noem—brought by the ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and International Refugee Assistance Project to stop ICE from sending immigrants to Guantánamo—she said she was housed with five men despite objecting, searched by male guards, allowed outside only 25 minutes a day, and given just one set of clothes with little food. She said guards communicated only in English, which she does not speak, and that she had no privacy using the bathroom or showering. She was later transferred to an ICE facility in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, where agents shackled her so tightly during the flight that she was in pain for days afterward.
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