This post originally appeared at https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/transgender-immigrants/

This is part 1 in a continuing series exploring U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s stances on illegal immigration.

U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin recently demanded the release of illegal transgender immigrants into U.S. communities.

In the same letter, Baldwin also criticized a number of Trump administration policies that had slowed the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S.

Furthermore, Baldwin, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, demanded that then-President Donald Trump’s administration allow transgender immigrants into the country. “Turning away transgender asylum seekers not only places them in harm’s way, it also violates the United States’ treaty obligations,” they wrote.

Read the letter 2019.10.15 Letter to DHS ICE and CPB regarding transgender migrants and asylum seekers

Baldwin and Warren also criticized the lack of sufficient transgender “pods” to hold trans immigrants, saying it’s dangerous to house transgender “women” with “cisgender” men. However, they concluded, “alternatives to detention should be used for transgender migrants.”

They touted placing certain “asylum seekers…in the community with monitoring by social workers.”

“We ask you to immediately reverse policies that harm these vulnerable individuals and take swift action to protect the health and safety of transgender migrants,” Baldwin and U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats, wrote on Oct. 15, 2019. They addressed the letter to then President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, the ICE director Matthew Albence, and Mark A. Morgan, then acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“Moreover, we urge you to use alternatives to detention, including release from detention on recognizance, parole, and community-based alternatives to incarceration, for vulnerable populations,” Baldwin and Warren demanded.

Baldwin and Warren chastised the Trump administration for making it harder for transgender migrants to come to the United States.

“Instead of offering refuge to this vulnerable population, the Trump Administration has made it harder for transgender individuals to seek and obtain asylum in the United States,” they scolded.

Specifically, they raised concern about the Trump administration’s policy, “known as the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces asylum seekers at the southern border back to Mexico to wait while their requests are processed,” the letter reads. According to Baldwin and Warren, “Transgender asylum seekers have nevertheless been forcibly returned to Mexico.”

The pair wrote that transgender immigrants suffer “sexual and gender-based violence in Mexico after crossing the border at blind
spots.”

Baldwin and Warren also criticized a Trump policy of “metering at ports of entry to reduce the number of asylum
seekers entering the United States.”

They wrote: “Given the dangers that transgender people face in Mexico, policies that force asylum seekers to wait in Mexico—like the Remain in Mexico and metering policies and the third-country transit asylum bar—violate the United States’ moral and legal obligations to transgender asylum seekers.”

The state GOP is reminding voters of Tammy Baldwin’s weak record on illegal immigration. As is typical with Baldwin, she is now remaking herself and positioning as tough on border security with an election looming.

Read her full record on immigration here.

According to House Republicans, the Biden administration’s policies on illegal immigration have been a disaster.

“The Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to remove more than 99 percent of illegal aliens, through immigration court proceedings, released into the country by the Biden Administration between January 20, 2021, and March 31, 2023, alone,” they wrote.

House Republicans say:

“Between January 20, 2021, and March 31, 2023, there were over 5 million illegal alien encounters. Of these encounters, at least 2,464,424 had no confirmed departure from the United States.

During the same period, DHS released at least 2,148,738 illegal aliens into the United States.

Only 5,993 illegal aliens encountered at the southwest border and placed in removal proceedings before an immigration judge were actually removed from the United States during this time.

A mere six percent of illegal aliens released into the United States were even screened for fear of persecution for purposes of asylum.

As of March 2023, DHS had removed only 874 of the illegal aliens found to have a credible fear of persecution and whose claims were adjudicated on the merits and denied by an immigration judge.

An additional 205,473 aliens were released into the country through illegal categorical parole programs.”

The Wisconsin GOP has argued that Tammy Baldwin has supported weak policies on illegal immigration.

“A record 169 suspects on the FBI’s terror watch list have been apprehended at the border this year,” the Wisconsin GOP wrote on October 24, 2023.

“Remember that Tammy Baldwin,” the GOP wrote:

❌opposed the border wall
❌opposed the border emergency declaration
❌opposed Kate’s Law

A record 169 suspects on the FBI’s terror watch list have been apprehended at the border this year.

Remember that Tammy Baldwin
❌opposed the border wall
❌opposed the border emergency declaration
❌opposed Kate’s Law

Wisconsin can’t trust Open Borders Baldwin to keep us safe.

— Wisconsin GOP (@WisGOP) October 24, 2023

“Wisconsin can’t trust Open Borders Baldwin to keep us safe,” the GOP wrote.