Trans Woman Tackled by ICE Officers With No Warrant & Released Only After a Genital Exam

Cosplayer Clara Tan was on her way home to the state of New York from an event in California when she was aggressively taken into ICE custody at the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport without being shown the warrant. After a suspected broken foot with no medical care and 18 hours in ICE custody in a male-only facility, Tan was released with an ankle monitor only because her detainers learned she had undergone bottom surgery.

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Tan quickly asked to see the warrant they claimed to have, as well as some identification for the four unknown men who were trying to take her out to their car and drive her away. She says they told her, “We can show it to you in the car, just come peacefully.”

To make sure someone would know what was happening, she tried to call someone. This, she says, prompted all four 220+ pound men to tackle her to the floor, potentially breaking her foot in the process.

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Fourteen hours after she was approached at the airport, Tan was finally processed and able to see the warrant, which she says didn’t have a judicial signature. The reasons for the detention, she reports, were:

1. Being Singaporean.

2. Not being a US national.

3. Entering the US on an “unknown date” and “unknown point of entry”.

4. Not studying at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy from June 19, 2019 to October 31, 2020.

While she acknowledges the first two are accurate facts, they are not illegal. She suggests the third point may stem from a failure on the part of the ICE agents, as she has a copy of her I-9 documentation, which tracks when and where people enter the United States, and shows that she entered at JFK Airport in New York in 2019. {snip}

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After a medical check by two female staff, she was told that rather than being housed at Batavia with men until her court date, she would be released with an ankle monitor instead. She says she questioned this, and was told, “Batavia, as it turns out, is currently a single-sex facility. Pre-op trans women are housed there, but not anybody with a vagina.”

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