building collective power, safety, and liberation for LGBTQIA+ and HIV+ immigrants — to free us all.
Queer Detainee Empowerment Project
Queer Detainee Empowerment Project
Our mission
The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP) assists folks coming out of immigration detention in securing structural, wellness, educational, legal, and emotional support and services. We work to organize around the structural barriers and state violence that LGBTQIA+ TS & GNC undocumented folks face related to their immigration status, race, sexuality, and gender expression and identity.
We are committed to assisting folks in building lives outside of detention, to breaking down the barriers that prevent folks from building fulfilling and productive lives, and to keeping queer families intact by demanding an end to deportations, detention, and policing. We believe in creating a future of thriving, not just surviving.
Our programs
Our model centers those most marginalized — Black and Brown Queer and trans immigrants —and offers culturally responsive, trauma-informed care rooted in abolition and empowerment.
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Walking beside individuals as they transition to life post-detention, QDEP provides thoughtful, holistic, and culturally responsive services to our members. This includes: legal referrals, healthcare access, and emergency aid.
We’ve provided over 100 members with housing, legal, and health-related services since 2023.
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We create healing peer-led spaces to address the inherent trauma of a racist and xenophobic immigration system. This includes TRANSpire, a peer group specifically for trans migrants navigating the challenges of life post-detention, including housing insecurity and isolation.
Since 2023, we’ve hosted 30+ support groups and healing circles.
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To grow the movement for liberation and abolition and ensure it is led by directly impacted people, QDEP is invested in the training and education of members to build their individual and collective organizing skills.
QDEP is proud to have led a successful coalition campaign stopping the deportation of several Black queer and trans asylum seekers.
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The challenges faced by our members are not individual; they are structural and rooted in policing, militarized borders, anti-immigrant policies. They are rooted in systems designed to isolate and silence the people most affected. Our member-led organizing disrupts these systems and helps us realize a future rooted in healing, repair, and abolitionist.
QDEP is proud to support the Dignity Not Detention Campaign and other efforts to end deportation, challenge ICE detention, and center queer migrant justice.
no detention
no deportation
no trans violence
Just abundant & thriving queer and immigrant communities.
