San Francisco Drag Queen Detained by ICE

Community activists in San Francisco are rallying to support Hilary Rivers, an immigrant drag queen, who was arrested by ICE agents. He is one of the latest LGBTQ+ victims of the Trump administration’s campaign of mass deportations.

Due to a “traumatic and severe” persecution for being gay, Rivers fled his home in Guatemala, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. On June 26, Rivers attended a scheduled asylum hearing where the government’s motion to dismiss his case was denied. Rivers was arrested by ICE as he left the courthouse. Rivers is now believed to be held in Golden State Annex, an ICE detention center in Bakersfield. His arrest caused activist and advocacy groups like SF Pride and the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative to lobby for Rivers’ release and assurances of his safety while in detention.

Advocates asked for ICE’s San Francisco office to be “flooded” with phone calls following Rivers’ arrest, per 48Hills, and San Francisco nonprofit art collective Galeria de la Raza hosted a letter-writing session last Monday for community members to send messages of support. Rivers’ “primary concern is for people to understand that he was doing things following the law and that he was not a criminal,” the gallery’s director, Ani Rivera, said at the event, according to SFGate.

“We came to this country truly seeking opportunity. We are members of the LGBTQ community, and closing the door like that is not only unfair but disheartening,” says Claudia Cabrera, program director at the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, at the letter-writing session. “There are really no words to describe the feeling this provokes in us as immigrants and those who have been in Hilary’s shoes.” The night before his arrest, Rivers had performed at Miss & Mr. Safe Latino, a beloved queer community pageant which began during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis and celebrated its 30th anniversary this year.

Photo courtesy of Instagram