A Trans Woman Detained in a Deadly Arizona Detention Center Refuses to be Silent

Karla Saenz’s pink tennis shoes no longer had laces — United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confiscated them — but her step was firm. She was hungry but not ready to eat; her voice was tired, but she refused to be silent. Clutching her black purse against her pink sweater, she sat down at a truck-stop Wendy’s outside Eloy, Arizona, and described her experience in immigration detention, just minutes after being released. She was exhausted and yet determined to keep fighting.

This story was published in partnership with High Country News.
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Before she was detained, Saenz, 26, spent a year as one of the most vocal advocates for Arbella “Yari” Marquez, a longtime Phoenix resident locked away in a notorious ICE detention camp in Eloy, where she was suffering dangerous health complications, including leukemia, and reportedly losing more than 70 pounds. Marquez is lesbian, and for Saenz, a trans woman, the fight to try to free her was deeply personal. Saenz helped organize the campaign for Marquez, arranged visitations, was a contact for politicians and the media and fought tirelessly to publicize the conditions inside the camp, especially for LGBTQ+ people.

Saenz and Trans Queer Pueblo, a Phoenix-based racial and gender justice organization that organizes with trans and queer migrants, put Marquez’s plight on the national stage, drawing attention from members of Congress and community faith leaders. 

Saenz knows the stakes. In her home country of Venezuela, she faced intense persecution for being trans as she fled across multiple South American borders, according to the habeas petition her lawyers filed in April. She was repeatedly raped, kidnapped twice and subjected to forced labor, finally escaping in 2024. Eventually, she made it to the U.S. border to begin the asylum process.

This March, Saenz and a Trans Queer Pueblo volunteer who accompanied her went to what Saenz thought was a routine immigration check-in. An agent told her she was being detained but not why, and Saenz broke down in tears. A week later, she said, after a whirlwind of deprivation and transfers, she tested positive for COVID-19 and found herself in isolation in the same detention center as Marquez — just a few hundred yards from the person she’d been fighting to free for a year and yet unable to directly communicate with her.

After her release from isolation, Saenz spent the next six weeks in the men’s unit. Marquez, in the women’s unit, sent her a letter, telling her to be strong, that she was standing with her, that they would both eventually get out. 

Saenz couldn’t help Marquez from the inside. But there were other trans women in the men’s unit with her, and she knew they needed help, too. 

Eloy Detention Center, opened in 1994, has historically been one of the deadliest detention camps in the country. The facility — marked by an unhealthy-looking, droopy-armed saguaro next to a sign for CoreCivic, the for-profit company that runs it — is surrounded by a vast parking area and dust. It’s not far from three prisons run by CoreCivic, located amid farmland about 10 minutes from Eloy, a sun-baked town of just over 15,000 people. 

Beyond the camp’s concertina-wire double-fencing and flat gray facade, the accounts of those detained in the 1,600-bed facility describe inadequate medical care, unsanitary conditions, physical abuse and frequent lockdowns. After the first five days in isolation, Saenz said she spent weeks being denied her hormone treatment along with the medication she needed for a chronic illness. She complained of pervasive transphobia and bad food, but guards ignored her.  

In response to Saenz’s account, an ICE spokesperson wrote a detailed email — referring to her by her deadname and using male pronouns — saying that her allegations “regarding mistreatment and denied medical care are entirely false.” Citing patient privacy, ICE declined to comment on her COVID-19 diagnosis but insisted that Saenz filed no official grievances while inside and that she was arrested for having missed scheduled check-ins, something Saenz denies.

“Facility staff treat all detainees equally, with respect and dignity,” the ICE spokesperson wrote, emphasizing “all.” “Being in detention is a choice,” the spokesperson added, saying unauthorized migrants should leave the country voluntarily. 

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LOOKOUTJohn Washington (he/him)

Saenz’s detention unfolded amid dramatically expanding immigration enforcement. Since Trump's second term began, detention book-ins have surged — running more than 60% higher in early 2026 than the same period the previous year. For transgender detainees, the picture is both dangerous and opaque: ICE stopped publishing data on transgender people in custody in February 2025, making it nearly impossible for advocates to track — or protect — them.

After Trans Queer Pueblo’s campaign for Marquez was extended to Saenz herself and a LOOKOUT article was published, attorneys took up her case. Finally, after more than six weeks in detention, a judge ordered her release on April 21. The next day, she was released, and within a half-hour, she met with LOOKOUT/High Country News at the Wendy's off I-10, about 45 minutes south of Phoenix.

The following interview, translated from Spanish and edited for length and clarity, is drawn from three conversations: One conducted by phone while Saenz was still detained, one shortly after her release, and another several weeks later. Together, they trace the arc of her 44-day ordeal, as well as her refusal, through all of it, to go quiet.

John Washington for LOOKOUT/High Country News, speaking to Saenz while she was still detained: How are you?

Karla Saenz: Bad. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: Why?

Saenz: Because of the inhumane treatment, living with so many men, the discrimination and transphobia. They had me isolated for five days because I supposedly had COVID, but I didn’t have any symptoms. They only let me out to bathe; I ate in my cell, everything in my cell. I couldn’t talk to anyone; there was nothing to do, I cried all day. I didn’t know what time it was. They brought me food at different times. Sometimes they didn’t bring it at all. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: You went hungry?

Saenz: Yes. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: How are you handling it all?

Saenz: I’ve tried to stay strong, maintain my ideals, but it’s really complicated to fight alone against everything when there are no human rights, no respect, no nothing. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: You were arrested at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Phoenix after they said you had missed required check-ins. Can you explain what happened at the check-in?

Saenz: The guy tending to me had me sit apart (from the accompanying Trans Queer Pueblo volunteer) and said we needed to do a verification. They took me to a room and asked me my name, address — and then I turned and saw an official with gloves on who said they were detaining me. They put shackles on my hands, ankles, waist, and then took me out the back like a criminal. And I started crying and shaking with nerves. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: Members of Trans Queer Pueblo say your detention is retaliation, specifically for your advocacy for Arbella “Yari” Marquez. Is that how you see it? 

Saenz: Yes, it’s retaliation. It’s their way of trying to silence us, but they won’t be able to. They have me locked up without any reason except I’m trans, Black and an immigrant, because I raised my voice and have no fear. 

LOOKOUT/HCN, continuing the conversation shortly after Saenz’s release: Now that you’re out, how do you look back at what it was like inside?

Saenz: My feelings are all mixed up, but I can say it’s disgusting, and nobody deserves to be held inside — nobody.

LOOKOUT/HCN: You mentioned that you had spent the first five days in Eloy in solitary confinement. A spokesperson for ICE said that was “categorically false.” How do you respond?

Saenz: It’s not in their interest for people on the outside to know what’s happening inside. There are no human rights. There’s no respect for anybody. They do whatever they want with us. A lot of people are isolated, a lot of people are medicated (against their will), a lot of people are dying inside, and they don’t care. They try to make you sign a voluntary departure form (an agreement to leave the country without a formal deportation order), and if you don’t, they throw you in a room. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: How many times did they try to get you to sign voluntary departure papers?

Saenz: More than 10 times. And I always refused. I would rip up the paper, fight, scream.

LOOKOUT/HCN: You said there were other trans women detained in Eloy. 

Saenz: Three others.

LOOKOUT/HCN: Also held with the men?

Saenz: Yes. We asked to please be treated as women. We had come from fighting transphobia on the outside. They kept calling me “Mr. Carlos Saenz.” I've been struggling with this for years, trying to escape it, and all I ask is, please, respect my identity as a woman. I spoke with the manager, with the boss; I spoke with everyone, and they didn’t care.

LOOKOUT/HCN: What was it like with the other trans women?

Saenz: They wouldn’t let us be together inside. But we'd go out to the yard together, the three of us, and we'd cry and laugh together. They had been in longer than I had. I defended them so many times. It’s so hard to fight against a system and against the rooted machismo. I defended them because the men cat-called them, humiliated them. They’re my sisters. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: Now that you’re out, what’s next?

Saenz: I’m going to keep fighting. Right now, I feel in my heart this desire, this need, because I was able to get free, but my sisters are still inside. They’re still living that discrimination, the transphobia. 

LOOKOUT/HCN, speaking to Saenz weeks later: What do you see in your mind when you think about that time inside?

Saenz: I remember everything: the pain, the sadness, the despair, the inhumane treatment we received, and the discrimination and racism we faced from the CoreCivic guards. The transphobia is really intense inside. For example, they make you wear really baggy clothes. You can’t knot your shirt, can’t tuck your shirt in, and if you do, they threaten you. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: Did they give you a bra?

Saenz: Yeah, they gave me a bra about 15 days after I asked for it. You have to wait for everything. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: With all that waiting, the isolation, the nights, what did you think about? 

Saenz: That I couldn’t give up — that I had to share my understanding with the other girls so they could defend themselves. I thought about them a lot. I’ve always been able to stay strong because I felt that Trans Queer Pueblo had my back. 

But to see them so vulnerable, how the others inside treat them, how the guards treat them, I just kept thinking about what talks I could give them, or how to educate them so they had the tools to defend themselves against all of it. And I’d get sad, too, and cry, though I never lost hope I’d get out of that place. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: Were you ever able to rest in there, to let your guard down?

Saenz: No, there’s no peace or tranquility. Inside, we were the only feminine presence, and the men saw us as sexual objects. So, when I had the opportunity to share with the other inmates, I tried to educate them as well, to explain that we were women, and they should respect us as women. I stayed strong and leaned into my knowledge, and I demanded respect. I taught them how to live with a trans woman. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: And you never just wanted to take a break, hide who you are?

Karla: Never. I always stood firm: that I am a trans woman, that I'm Karla Saenz, and that I won't let anything or anyone rob me of my identity. 

LOOKOUT/HCN: How have you been taking care of yourself, healing, since you’ve been released?

Karla: When I got out, I was scared to be out again, to return to daily life, and it felt really odd. I couldn’t sleep. I would wake up crying. I can tell that detention really affected me. Though I always present myself as strong, and I know I have the tools to defend myself, I really believe that nobody deserves to live that life inside. It’s hell.