A transgender woman claims she was unlawfully arrested by ICE agents this week after her flight home landed at the Rochester airport.
The agents shouted her name – Clara Tan – to confirm her identity before taking her into custody, she said. She then was taken to the detention facility in Batavia that only houses men but released hours later after a physical examination confirmed she did not have male genitalia.
"I’ve just had one of the worst 18- hour periods of my life," Tan wrote of the incident on Facebook. "I think it’s an important story to share."
Tan, 33, says four men who identified themselves as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents approached her around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday as she left the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport. She asked if they had a warrant, she said, then attempted to use her phone. That is when she alleges the men tackled and handcuffed her, injuring her left foot.
"I felt pain like you never felt before," she said, "and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. And I'm thinking, all right, here we go."
ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Tan is originally from Singapore, and came to the United States in 2019 to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. She filed a petition for asylum in 2019, and had a work permit.
She was returning from California, having traveled there for a concert that got cancelled because the Japanese performers could not obtain visas.
“There's a sort of poetry symmetry about it," she said. "I only went to L.A. for a show that got canceled because of immigration shit, and then I spent the end of my trip in immigration detention."
While in Batavia, Tan alleges, she was told she would be kept at the all-men's facility, despite identifying as a woman.
In January of 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring all federal offices only recognize two genders, and defining biological sex as assigned at birth. Later that year, ICE released updated National Detention Standards to align with the order, essentially abolishing any guidance on the healthcare and housing of transgender individuals in detention.
Tan started hormone therapy in 2016, and underwent gender-affirming surgery in 2024.
After voicing her concerns at Batavia, she said, a guard summoned two female medical staff.
"They were like, we need to check to make sure that you don't have a penis," Tan said.
After the examination, Tan says she was released, and that a guard dropped her off at the gate where she was picked up by a friend and taken to Strong Memorial Hospital.
Tan has an order to appear in court Dec. 6, but for now is on supervised release, fitted with an ankle monitor.
