Trans Woman Killed After Being Deported From U.S. to El Salvador

A trans woman named Camila (and alternately, Aurora) was killed in her native El Salvador after being deported from the United States, reports the Washington Blade.

Camila was part of a migrant caravan of Central Americans seeking asylum in the U.S. late last year. Camila told American officials she was threatened in her home of El Salvador, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Transgender people are often targeted for violence in the small country; another trans woman, Lolita, was killed just this month, according to the Blade.

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"[Camila] migrated to the U.S. because of threats that she had received, but she was deported because they didn't believe her," LGBTQ advocate Aislinn Odaly's told the Blade.

After returning to El Salvador, Camila went missing in late January. The Salvadoran trans rights organization Asociacion Aspidh Arcoiris Trans discovered she was admitted to a San Salvador hospital on January 31, and died on February 3. Camila's injuries and cause of death are not clear.

El Salvador has a hate crimes law that ostensibly adds enhanced penalties for violence committed against LGBTQ people, but neither Camila nor Lolita's deaths have been categorized as bias-motivated crimes.

There are over 100 transgender people currently in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Roxsana Hernandez -- a 33-year-old, HIV-positive transgender woman from Honduras -- died after being housed at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico. Activists said Hernandez died of preventable causes, but a spokesperson said those reports are "false."