Luis Reyes-Reyes says he fled El Salvador to escape persecution, and if immigration officials determine those fears are legitimate, he could be granted asylum in the United States under the Convention Against Torture.
But Reyes-Reyes, 42, is not looking for traditional political asylum. As he and his lawyers put it, he fears returning to his homeland because, for much of his life, he has lived as a woman.
The question before immigration officials is whether Reyes-Reyes will be among a small number of transgender immigrants who have been granted asylum because their sexual identity could put them in peril in their homelands.
Reyes-Reyes won a temporary reprieve from deportation after the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that an immigration board in San Pedro did not consider his case under the proper legal standard.
Immigration attorneys say this is the first time that a federal appeals court has told an immigration board to reconsider a case because of issues related to sexual identity.
The board must determine whether the Salvadoran government condoned or willfully ignored the persecution Reyes-Reyes claims to have endured and whether it is likely he would be abused if he were sent home.
Reyes-Reyes testified in a hearing that he was afraid to return to El Salvador because "people like me are killed."
He declined to be interviewed, but court documents detail his personal history.
Before coming to Los Angeles in 1979, Reyes-Reyes testified, he suffered intolerable cruelty in El Salvador because of his sexual identity. He was only 13, he said, when he was kidnapped, raped and beaten by a gang of men.
Fearing for his life, he said, he headed north and crossed illegally into the U.S. from Tijuana when he was 17.
For 25 years, he managed to evade immigration officials in Southern California. He did domestic work -- cleaning houses, gardening, tending pools.
Court documents described Reyes-Reyes as someone who "dresses and looks like a woman, wearing makeup and a woman's hairstyle." He has gone by female names, including Josephine, Linda and Cukita, but has not undergone sex-change surgery.
It is not clear exactly when Reyes-Reyes adopted a female identity, but court documents noted, "He has had a characteristically female appearance, mannerisms and gestures for the past 16 years. He has a deep female identity."
