NEW YORK -- A letter authored by a coalition of LGBT and HIV rights groups to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says that LGBT immigrants and those with HIV experience gross mistreatment and abuse in immigration detention facilities.

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) has filed a series of civil complaints of egregious civil rights violations in immigration facilties in nine states. The 14-page letter is written in support of NIJC's complaints.

"We urge DHS to conduct an expedited review of NIJC's complaints, and to work closely with stakeholders and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field offices to adopt and implement reforms," asks the coalition in the letter.

"LGBT immigrants and people living with HIV who are held in immigration detention facilities are systematically denied medical care, and abused physically, mentally, and sexually," said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Lambda Legal Staff Attorney. "LGBT immigrants are among the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. The Department of Homeland Security must protect the civil rights of immigrants in detention centers."

The letter points out a series of systemic problems in immigrant detention facilities across the country that begin with not knowing where and how to house LGBT individuals.

LGBT individuals are currently being segregated and placed in solitary confinement while transgender people are not assigned to housing in accordance with their gender identity, claims the letter. LGBT immigrants are being denied medically necessary treatments like those for gender identity disorder, including access to hormone treatment for transgender individuals.

Immigrants with HIV continue to unnecessarily suffer - and even die - while in immigration detention because facilities fail to meet standards for the treatment of HIV in correctional settings. LGBT detainees in immigration detention facilities experience pervasive sexual, physical, and mental abuse.

The coalition urges DHS to create and implement protocols that 1) guide detention facilities on where and how to house LGBT detainees, including the use of segregation and solitary confinement; 2) ensure medically necessary treatment for gender identity disorder; 3) adhere to national clinical protocols for the treatment of HIV, including HIV testing, education, counseling and confidentiality; and 4) protect LGBT individuals and people living with HIV from sexual, physical and mental abuse.

Signatories of the document include: AIDS Foundation of Chicago; American Immigration Council; BIENESTAR; Center for Constitutional Rights; The Center for HIV Law and Policy; Equality Illinois; Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders; HIV Law Project; Human Rights Campaign; Latin American Legal Defense & Education Fund; National Center for Lesbian Rights; National Center for Transgender Equality; National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild; Northwest Immigrant Rights Project; Sylvia Rivera Law Project; and Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund.

The full text of the letter is available HERE.