The Left are coming up with one ridiculous reason after another to coddle illegal aliens.
(By the way, California’s “Governor Moonbeam” Jerry Brown recently banned the word “alien” from the state’s labor laws. In other words, the term “illegal alien” is now illegal in California!).
The latest: the infamous San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that illegals can’t be deported if they’re “transgender” — an entirely fictitious notion that, according to two scientists, have no basis in biology. (See The truth about transgenderism and ‘gender-reassignment’ surgery)
Matt Ford reports for The Atlantic that a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a significant decision on Sept 3, 2015, ruling that courts must consider whether a transgender illegal alien could face persecution or torture if deported.
In Avendano-Hernandez v. Lynch, the court considered whether Erin Avendano-Hernandez, a Mexican national who claims to be transgendered, should be granted asylum in the United States.
The judges maintain that Avendano-Hernandez experienced physical and sexual abuse from members of her own family in Mexico because of her “sexual identity.” She entered the U.S. illegally in 2000 and began “transitioning” with hormone therapy soon thereafter. After being deported back to Mexico in 2007 for driving under the influence, she was detained and raped by Mexican police officers. She then illegally re-crossed the border into the U.S.
Three years later, Avendano-Hernandez was arrested and slated again for deportation by an immigration judge. The UN Convention against Torture, which the U.S. ratified in 1994, prohibits deporting a person to a country where they are likely to be tortured. But the immigration judge ruled that recent gay-rights legislation in Mexico made further torture unlikely.
In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit criticized both the immigration judge’s decision and the Board of Immigration Appeals that reviewed it, for their insufficient consideration of transgender issues:
The IJ failed to recognize the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation, refusing to allow the use of female pronouns because she considered Avendano-Hernandez to be “still male,” even though Avendano-Hernandez dresses as a woman, takes female hormones, and has identified as woman for over a decade. Although the BIA correctly used female pronouns for Avendano-Hernandez, it wrongly adopted the IJ’s analysis, which conflated transgender identity and sexual orientation.
Since Avendano-Hernandez first entered the U.S., however, Mexico has passed an anti-discrimination law and legalized same-sex marriage. But the 9th District Court insists that these social advances don’t necessarily apply to transgender people, who face distinct challenges. Writing for the court, Judge Jacqueline Nguyen opined, “Indeed, Mexico has one of the highest documented number of transgender murders in the world. Avendano-Hernandez’s experiences reflect how transgender persons are caught in the crosshairs of both generalized homophobia and transgender-specific violence and discrimination.”
The panel’s decision sets a precedent throughout the entire Ninth Circuit, which includes California and Arizona, two major immigration hubs.
H/t FOTM’s MomOfIV
~Eowyn
