Marianna

Transgender Law Center won an appeal of the U.S. government’s order of removal for Marianna, a transgender woman who emigrated from Mexico almost 20 years ago. In the appeal, TLC argued that the government violated Marianna’s due process, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, by failing to inform her of her right to apply for asylum after she told an immigration judge she feared for her life should she be forced to return to Mexico. Then, after 536 days behind bars at Cibola Detention Center in Milan, NM, Marianna was granted asylum by Immigration Judge O’Hare.

The immigration judge found that Marianna had a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her status as a transgender woman from Mexico. TLC had prepared a legal brief with nearly 600 pages of evidence in support of Marianna’s claim, including multiple letters of support from her loving family as well as the “Report on Human Rights Conditions of Transgender Women in Mexico,” which TLC coauthored with the Cornell Law School LGBT Clinic.