ABOVE: Jerlín in Honduras on July 20, 2021. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
A transgender man who fled Honduras has been able to enter the U.S.
Jerlín, who the Washington Blade interviewed last summer in the Honduran city of La Ceiba, on Saturday entered the U.S. in Eagle Pass, Texas, after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted his request for humanitarian parole that allows him to temporarily remain in the U.S.
Jerlín told the Blade in a previous interview that he and a small group of migrants left Honduras on Jan. 14.
He reached Piedras Negras, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass on Jan. 24. Jerlín sought to enter the U.S., but U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers sent him back to Mexico under Title 42, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention rule that has closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the pandemic.
Jerlín’s lawyer, Abdiel Echevarría-Caban, submitted the humanitarian parole application on his behalf.
Echevarría-Caban told the Blade that Jerlín plans to ask for asylum in the U.S. based on persecution due to his gender identity. Jerlín, whose legal name does not correspond with his gender identity, will pursue his case from Houston where his mother and sister live.
Violence and discrimination based on gender identity remains commonplace in Honduras.
Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent trans activist, was murdered outside her home in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jan. 11.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last June issued a landmark ruling that found the Honduran state responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a trans activist who was killed in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city, after the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. (His wife, Xiomara Castro, took office as Honduras’ first female president on Jan. 26.) Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group in Tegucigalpa, notes Hernández and Rodríguez are two of the more than 400 LGBTQ people who have been reported killed in Honduras since 2009.
