ICE Ends Hormone Therapy and Specialized Care for Transgender Detainees at Over 10 Facilities

The Department of Homeland Security has ended specialized medical protocols for transgender detainees in ICE custody, cutting off hormone therapy at more than 10 facilities nationwide, according to public records reported by The New York Times.

DHS made its position blunt in a Thursday post on X: "We will NOT waste taxpayer dollars to provide hormone therapy to illegal aliens seeking to change their sex."

The change tracks with Executive Order 14168, signed by President Trump, which established that the federal government recognizes two sexes. DHS has also deleted an Obama-era policy on the care of transgender individuals in custody from its website, and protections meant to shield transgender detainees from harassment or physical harm have been dissolved, according to the Times.

How many people are affected

The population involved is small. ICE held 244 detainees who identified as transgender between October 2023 and September 2024. The agency's last public count, from January 12, 2025, listed 47 transgender detainees in custody, according to data archived by the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal-justice-focused think tank. ICE has since stopped releasing that data.

For scale: as of July 11, ICE held more than 65,000 people total. Transgender detainees represent a small fraction of that population, even by the estimates of advocacy groups who track the issue.

The Toro de Paula case

The Times centered its reporting on Camila Toro de Paula, a 25-year-old Venezuelan national who has spent 11 months in a men's detention facility in Jena, Louisiana. Toro de Paula, who identifies as transgender, says she has been assaulted, threatened, and held in solitary confinement without reliable access to water for up to 24 hours at a time. Medical files reviewed by the Times show she complained to social workers about being punished over her gender expression.

DHS disputes the mistreatment claims. The department told the Times that no detainees are being "beaten or abused" and said, "No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States."

On Toro de Paula's background, DHS pointed to a criminal record that includes charges for felony assault and criminal possession. Both charges were dismissed and sealed. Her attorney says those charges stemmed from a June 30, 2025, incident in the Bronx where Toro de Paula says she was defending herself against a robber by hitting him with a skillet. She was also charged with prostitution in Queens, later dismissed, and with pickpocketing, to which she pleaded guilty on a reduced jostling charge, according to the Times.

Neither DHS's account nor Toro de Paula's account of the assault allegations has been independently verified in the available reporting. That's an open question, not a settled one.

The competing arguments

Bridget Crawford, legal director at Immigration Equality, a nonprofit that runs a hotline for LGBTQ+ immigrants, told the Times the policy shift is "creating a humanitarian disaster." Medical experts cited by the Times say abruptly stopping hormone treatment for gender dysphoria can cause physical and mental health complications. Immigration Equality's hotline reportedly logged a sharp jump in complaints tied to detention conditions.

On the other side, DHS's position is straightforward: these are people in the country illegally, in civil detention, and the department isn't obligated to fund elective hormone treatment for them with taxpayer money. Civil detention systems are not required by law to replicate every specialized medical accommodation a person might access outside detention, and reasonable people can disagree about where the line sits between basic medical care and specialized treatment.

Where the coverage diverges

Conservative Daily News flagged a real pattern in the Times piece worth naming directly: the article opens and closes on Toro de Paula's personal account, treats the policy change primarily as a source of harm, and frames DHS's rebuttal as confirming rather than answering the criticism. That's a legitimate critique of narrative structure. It doesn't mean the underlying facts, the contract changes, the deleted policy, the halted hormone access, are wrong. They're documented in public records the Times reviewed.

What's missing from both the Times piece and the conservative response is independent verification of the assault and water-deprivation claims. Nobody's confirmed those allegations beyond Toro de Paula's own account and her lawyer's statements. DHS flatly denies abuse is happening.

What's next

DHS has not said whether it will resume publishing transgender detainee population counts, which it stopped doing after the January 2025 report of 47 people in custody. Immigration Equality's attorneys say they're pursuing legal avenues on behalf of detainees like Toro de Paula, though no lawsuit outcome has been reported. Whether Toro de Paula's underlying assault claims get independently investigated by DHS's own oversight mechanisms remains an open question.