India, Oct. 8 -- In Miami, Daniela Fuentes styled hair for clients and performed in drag at a nightclub called Azucar. She wore her blond wig in public and dressed as the woman she had known herself to be since adolescence in Cuba.

Now, more than 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometres) away in the Central African Republic, she wears men's clothes, lowers her voice and tries not to draw attention to the breasts she developed after beginning hormone treatment as a teenager. As part of US efforts to deport people to countries other than their own, authorities sent her Aug. 29 to a place where she has no ties and where advocacy groups have reported arbitrary detention, torture, and other rights violations of sexual and gender minorities.

"Everythin...