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U.S. Federal Courts

Two men charged with attacking trans Puerto Rican woman sentenced to 33 months in prison

Alexa Negrón Luciano attacked with paintball gun before 2020 murder

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(Bigstock photo)

Two men who pleaded guilty to federal hate crimes charges in connection with attacking a transgender woman in Puerto Rico in 2020 have been sentenced to 33 months in prison.

The Justice Department in a Nov. 15 press release notes Jordany Laboy Garcia and Christian Rivera Otero will also have three years of supervised release upon their release from prison. The two men in September pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit a hate crime and obstruction of justice “out of an assault with a dangerous weapon against a transgender woman because of her gender identity.”

The Justice Department in a press release that announced the men’s guilty plea notes they, along with Anthony Lobos Ruiz “were out driving together” in Toa Baja, a municipality that is about 15 miles west of San Juan, early on Feb. 24, 2020, “when they saw” Alexa Negrón Luciano “standing under a tent near the side of the road.”

“The defendants recognized A.N.L. from social media posts concerning an incident that had occurred the day prior at a McDonald’s in Toa Baja,” reads the press release. “During that incident, A.N.L. had used a stall in the McDonald’s women’s restroom.”

Lobos, according to the Justice Department, and others used his iPhone to record themselves yelling at Negrón from inside a car. Lobos, Rivera and Laboy then recorded themselves shooting Negrón with a paintball gun and shared the video with other people.

Negrón was later killed in Toa Baja.

A federal judge last November sentenced Lobos to two years and nine months in prison after he pleaded guilty to hate crimes charges. Lobos, Rivera and Laboy have not been charged with Negrón’s murder.

“The defendants have been held accountable for assaulting a Latina transgender woman because of her gender identity and then trying to obstruct an investigation into that assault,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico Stephen Muldrow said the “defendants’ attack endangered and terrified their victim, and such actions have no place in our community.” 

“Bias-motivated violence not only runs contrary to our values but violates federal civil rights laws,” he said. “We recognize the very real threats and acts of violence faced by the LGBTQI+ community and are determined to use every tool available to preserve the life, safety, and dignity of this community.”

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U.S. Federal Courts

Judge temporarily blocks executive orders targeting LGBTQ, HIV groups

Lambda Legal filed the lawsuit in federal court

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President Donald Trump (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A federal judge on Monday blocked the enforcement of three of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that would have threatened to defund nonprofit organizations providing health care and services for LGBTQ people and those living with HIV.

The preliminary injunction was awarded by Judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in a case, San Francisco AIDS Foundation v. Trump, filed by Lambda Legal and eight other organizations.

Implementation of the executive orders — two aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion along with one targeting the transgender community — will be halted pending the outcome of the litigation challenging them.

“This is a critical win — not only for the nine organizations we represent, but for LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV across the country,” said Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project director and senior counsel on the case. 

“The court blocked anti-equity and anti-LGBTQ executive orders that seek to erase transgender people from public life, dismantle DEI efforts, and silence nonprofits delivering life-saving services,” Abrigo said. “Today’s ruling acknowledges the immense harm these policies inflict on these organizations and the people they serve and stops Trump’s orders in their tracks.”

Tigar wrote, in his 52-page decision, “While the Executive requires some degree of freedom to implement its political agenda, it is still bound by the constitution.”

“And even in the context of federal subsidies, it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous,” he said.

Without the preliminary injunction, the judge wrote, “Plaintiffs face the imminent loss of federal funding critical to their ability to provide lifesaving healthcare and support services to marginalized LGBTQ populations,” a loss that “not only threatens the survival of critical programs but also forces plaintiffs to choose between their constitutional rights and their continued existence.”

The organizations in the lawsuit are located in California (San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLBT Historical Society, and San Francisco Community Health Center), Arizona (Prisma Community Care), New York (The NYC LGBT Community Center), Pennsylvania (Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center), Maryland (Baltimore Safe Haven), and Wisconsin (FORGE).

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U.S. Federal Courts

Judge blocks Trump’s order for prison officials to withhold gender affirming care

ACLU represents plaintiffs in the case

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U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who oversees the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order compelling officials with the Bureau of Prisons to stop providing gender-affirming hormone therapy and accommodations to transgender people.

News of the order by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a Republican appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, was reported in a press release by the ACLU, which is representing plaintiffs in the litigation alongside the Transgender Law Center.

Pursuant to issuance of the executive order on Jan. 20, the the BOP announced that that “no Bureau of Prisons funds are to be expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” while also prohibiting clothing and commissary items the agency considers incongruous with a person’s birth sex, and requiring all BOP staff to misgender transgender people.

Two transgender men and one transgender woman, each diagnosed with gender dysphoria by prison officials and prescribed hormone therapy, were either informed that their treatment would soon be suspended or were cut off from their treatment. On behalf of America’s 2,000 or so transgender inmates, they filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration and BOP in March.

The ACLU noted that while Lamberth’s order did not address surgeries, it did grant the plaintiff’s motion for a class certification and extended injunctive relief to the full class, which encompasses all persons who are or will be incarcerated in BOP facilities and have a current medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who receive that diagnosis in the future,” per the press release.

“Today’s ruling is made possible by the courageous plaintiffs who fought to protect their rights and the rights of transgender people everywhere,” said Shawn Thomas Meerkamper, managing attorney at the Transgender Law Center. “This administration’s continued targeting of transgender people is cruel and threatens the lives of all people. No person—incarcerated or not, transgender or not—should have their rights to medically necessary care denied. We are grateful the court understood that our clients deserve basic dignity and healthcare, and we will continue to fight alongside them.”

“Today’s ruling is an important lifeline for trans people in federal custody,” said Michael Perloff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of D.C. “The ruling is also a critical reminder to the Trump administration that trans people, like all people, have constitutional rights that don’t simply disappear because the president has decided to wage an ideological battle.”

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U.S. Federal Courts

Immigration judge dismisses Andry Hernández Romero’s asylum case

Gay makeup artist from Venezuela ‘forcibly removed’ to El Salvador in March

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Andry Hernández Romero (Photo courtesy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

An immigration judge on Tuesday dismissed the asylum case of a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center represents Andry Hernández Romero.

The Los Angeles-based organization in a press release notes Immigration Judge Paula Dixon in San Diego granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to dismiss Hernández’s case. A hearing had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

Hernández asked for asylum because of persecution he said he suffered in Venezuela because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs. NBC News reported Hernández pursued his case while at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.”

President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.” Hernández is one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit that seeks to force the U.S. to return those sent to El Salvador under the 18th century law.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center says officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed Hernández is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos. Hernández and hundreds of other Venezuelans who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly removed” from the U.S. remain at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month told gay U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that Hernández “is in El Salvador” and questions about his well-being “would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador.” Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), were unable to meet with Hernández last month when they traveled to the Central American country.

“DHS is doing everything it can to erase the fact that Andry came to the United States seeking asylum and he was denied due process as required by our Constitution,” said Immigrant Defenders Law Center President Lindsay Toczylowski on Thursday in the press release her organization released. “We should all be incredibly alarmed at what has happened in Andry’s case. The idea that the government can disappear you because of your tattoos, and never even give you a day in court, should send a chill down the spine of every American. If this can happen to Andry, it can happen to any one of us.”

Toczylowski said the Immigrant Defenders Law Center will appeal Dixon’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Justice Department oversees.

The Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Human Rights Campaign, and other groups on June 6 plan to hold a rally for Hernández outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Protesters in Venezuela have also called for his release.

“Having tattoos does not make you a delinquent,” reads one of the banners that protesters held.

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