Homeland Security secretary attacks federal judge in Oregon over transgender asylum seeker’s release

The assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday accused a federal judge in Oregon of “caving” to immigration activists when

ordering the release

days earlier of a transgender woman asylum seeker from Mexico who was arrested in June in the hallway of Portland Immigration Court.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLoughlin, in a press release, released the name and a photo of the woman and claimed “Biden-appointed” U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio “ignores biological reality.”

Baggio, in her ruling Monday, didn’t refer to the 24-year-old detainee’s gender, using only the initials “O-J-M” and “petitioner.”


O-J-M in court papers has said she fears returning to Mexico because she was persecuted as a transgender woman and sexually assaulted.

Baggio’s order blasted the government, saying it “failed to follow its own rules” and provided shifting and legally shaky reasons for the woman’s detention. The judge found that ICE officers had violated the woman’s due process rights and had no basis to arrest her.

At first, an ICE official told the court in a sworn declaration that O-J-M was arrested June 2 as part of an “expedited removal” proceeding. But Baggio pointed out that the government had no authority to do that because O-J-M had a right to appeal the dismissal of her asylum application and that the immigration judge’s ruling wasn’t final for 30 days.

Then 23 days after the arrest, a different Homeland Security officer provided a different justification to the court, contending that O-J-M would be held until the government completed an evaluation of her fear of returning to Mexico, Baggio said. The government “shifted the basis for authority to detain” O-J-M, leaving “petitioner” in custody even longer, Baggio said.

O-J-M’s lawyers said in a court filing that O-J-M chose to be held in solitary confinement for more than 40 days at the federal detention center in Tacoma for her own safety after she was first placed in a facility for men there.

McLaughlin said O-J-M was taken to the men’s facility because Homeland Security recognizes O-J-M as a biological male and for the safety of women in custody. It also aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order on gender, she said.

“The President made it clear on Day One: DHS will not buy into radical gender ideology when detaining illegal aliens,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide” whether to release or detain someone, she said.

Baggio undermined U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s commitment to promote secure and humane environments for women in custody, the statement said.

McLaughlin accused Baggio of subverting “the American people’s mandate to restore commonsense to our immigration system and reject extreme gender fanaticism,” but she did not explain how the ruling based on constitutional law might have done that.

The assistant secretary argued the reason for the arrest of O-J-M was that it was part of an “expedited removal,” although an ICE official and the U.S. Department of Justice lawyer in the case had abandoned that reasoning before Baggio issued her ruling.

O-J-M was released Monday night from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.

Baggio was nominated to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in February. The Trump administration has bashed judges across the country after rulings that have run counter to the administration’s initiatives.

The nonprofit Innovation Law Lab, whose lawyers represented O-J-M in the case, called the attack on the judge and the ordered release “disgusting.”

“Let’s be clear, the federal government is attempting to dox and intimidate this asylum seeker simply because she is trans,” the lab’s statement said. “This is a disgusting effort to distract from the real issue. ICE is trampling due process, a core, fundamental freedom that protects every person in the United States, no matter where they were born. Asylum seekers have been following all the rules in their lawful applications for asylum and federal agents are still snatching them off the street unlawfully.“

— Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X

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