Transgender Asylum Seekers Face Deportation ‘Revolving Door'

Transgender Asylum Seekers Face Deportation ‘Revolving Door'
NOGALES, AZ - MARCH 08: The U.S.-Mexico border fence stretches into the countryside on March 8, 2013 near Nogales, Arizona. U.S. Border Patrol agents in Nogales say they have seen a spike in immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico in the last week. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
NOGALES, AZ - MARCH 08: The U.S.-Mexico border fence stretches into the countryside on March 8, 2013 near Nogales, Arizona. U.S. Border Patrol agents in Nogales say they have seen a spike in immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico in the last week. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

PHOENIX Exhausted and defeated, Viviana boarded an airplane two years ago in San Antonio, Texas, facing her fifth deportation from the United States back to Honduras, a country from which she’d been fleeing violence for almost a decade.

“I had been in that plane so many times that the (immigration) officer recognized me,” said Viviana, a transgender woman who asked that her identity be withheld because she has a pending asylum case.

The female officer then told her something that changed everything: “Why don’t you apply for asylum?

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