A Salvadoran transgender woman who sought asylum in the United States was killed weeks after she was deported, a rights group said on Friday, underscoring the dangers of the Trump administration's hardening policy on asylum seekers.
El Salvador's ASPIDH Rainbow Trans Association said Camila Diaz Cordova, a 29-year-old sex worker, applied for asylum in the United States in August 2017 to escape death threats and extortion by multi-national gang Barrio 18.
The gang is one of two criminal organizations that control large urban swathes of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
US immigration authorities have confirmed they deported Diaz Cordova in November 2017. After her return, she went back into sex work in the capital San Salvador, where she was eventually kidnapped and beaten, according to her close friend Virginia Flores. She died in hospital on February 3.
"We demand that the authorities investigate, clear up the case and find those responsible, regardless of who they are," Rainbow Trans director Monica Linares told Reuters.