Alleged Hysterectomies at an ICE Detention Center

[lpetrich]

Whistleblower: There Were Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Facility | Law & Crime

Multiple women came forward to tell Project South about what they perceived to be the inordinate rate at which women in ICDC were subjected to hysterectomies – a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed. Additionally, many of the immigrant women who underwent the procedure were reportedly “confused” when asked to explain why they had the surgery, with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.

“Recently, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five different women detained at ICDC between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy done,” the complaint stated. “When she talked to them about the surgery, the women ‘reacted confused when explaining why they had one done.’ The woman told Project South that it was as though the women were ‘trying to tell themselves it’s going to be OK.’”

“When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies,” the detainee said.

An ICE official responded

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not comment on matters presented to the Office of the Inspector General, which provides independent oversight and accountability within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ICE takes all allegations seriously and defers to the OIG regarding any potential investigation and/or results. That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve.

The agency maintains that the Irwin County Detention Center has been inspected multiple times, with and without warning, and that the facility has been found to be in compliance with Performance Based National Detention Standards.

 

[lpetrich]

Nurse at ICE Detention Center Turns Covid-19 Whistleblower - "Irwin Detention Center, run by LaSalle Corrections, has refused to test detainees and underreported Covid-19 cases, the nurse says."

A nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia is speaking out about a host of dangerous medical practices at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, says that Irwin, which is run by the private corporation LaSalle Corrections, has underreported Covid-19 cases, knowingly placed staff and detainees at risk of contracting the virus, neglected medical complaints, and refused to test symptomatic detainees, among other dangerous practices. On September 8, Wooten submitted a letter detailing her complaints to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, with the help of attorneys from the Government Accountability Project. The grim situation inside the facility reflects what she called “a silent pandemic” running rampant behind the prison bars.

“You don’t want to see what you’re seeing,” Wooten told The Intercept. “You’re responsible for the lives of others,” but Irwin management, in her eyes, downplayed the threat of the virus from the start.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "The fact of the matter is the United States has engaged in a program of mass human rights violations targeting immigrants.

This includes mass child separation, systemic sexual assault of people in detention, kangaroo-court procedures, & more.

Our country must atone for it all." / Twitter

In places that she has called concentration camps.

 

[Worldtraveller]

We are at the point in the US where we need the UN to come in and oversee things. We are literally committee Nazi level warcrimes on people.

 

[Angry Floof]

We are at the point in the US where we need the UN to come in and oversee things. We are literally committee Nazi level warcrimes on people.

Well, that stands to reason given that Nazis are in charge of our country now.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If this has legs... the implications are shocking, I mean I'd actually be shocked by this. I wouldn't be shocked about the Republican Pizzeria that is human trafficking boys and girls. But this would be shocking. The claim isn't about dozens and dozens of known procedures (only five alleged at the moment), but this likely needs to be looked into... which it won't. Obviously, if it were true, they'd stonewall.

 

[Toni]

If this has legs... the implications are shocking, I mean I'd actually be shocked by this. I wouldn't be shocked about the Republican Pizzeria that is human trafficking boys and girls. But this would be shocking. The claim isn't about dozens and dozens of known procedures (only five alleged at the moment), but this likely needs to be looked into... which it won't. Obviously, if it were true, they'd stonewall.

I don't see what is so shocking. To the GOP, these women are nothing but dogs that need to be spayed.

They aren't even being fiscally responsible about it. I note that there are no forced vasectomies and those are much cheaper than hysterectomies. For that matter, so are tubal ligations. So this is nothing except torture. Gender specific and race specific.

 

[Angry Floof]

If this has legs... the implications are shocking, I mean I'd actually be shocked by this. I wouldn't be shocked about the Republican Pizzeria that is human trafficking boys and girls. But this would be shocking. The claim isn't about dozens and dozens of known procedures (only five alleged at the moment), but this likely needs to be looked into... which it won't. Obviously, if it were true, they'd stonewall.

I don't see what is so shocking. To the GOP, these women are nothing but dogs that need to be spayed.

They aren't even being fiscally responsible about it. I note that there are no forced vasectomies and those are much cheaper than hysterectomies. For that matter, so are tubal ligations. So this is nothing except torture. Gender specific and race specific.

Vasectomies also prevent potentially hundreds of times the number of pregnancies. Women can only be pregnant once every nine months (or more like a year bc often our bodies don't allow ovulation for up to a couple of months) and men can potentially impregnate another woman every day.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If this has legs... the implications are shocking, I mean I'd actually be shocked by this. I wouldn't be shocked about the Republican Pizzeria that is human trafficking boys and girls. But this would be shocking. The claim isn't about dozens and dozens of known procedures (only five alleged at the moment), but this likely needs to be looked into... which it won't. Obviously, if it were true, they'd stonewall.

I don't see what is so shocking. To the GOP, these women are nothing but dogs that need to be spayed.

This would be an abhorrent crime akin to atrocities in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, and Nazi Germany. This takes things to a whole other level.

They aren't even being fiscally responsible about it. I note that there are no forced vasectomies and those are much cheaper than hysterectomies. For that matter, so are tubal ligations. So this is nothing except torture. Gender specific and race specific.

I don't think we have enough details here to make a conclusion about what has actually happened. It raises an eyebrow, but right now the number is 5 over a period of several months. That isn't at the scale of an enacted policy yet.

 

[Toni]

This would be an abhorrent crime akin to atrocities in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, and Nazi Germany. This takes things to a whole other level.

They aren't even being fiscally responsible about it. I note that there are no forced vasectomies and those are much cheaper than hysterectomies. For that matter, so are tubal ligations. So this is nothing except torture. Gender specific and race specific.

I don't think we have enough details here to make a conclusion about what has actually happened. It raises an eyebrow, but right now the number is 5 over a period of several months. That isn't at the scale of an enacted policy yet.

No, right now the number stands at ONE person reporting 5. It seems unlikely that those were the only ones. This, btw, is not unlike the government policy that forcibly performed hysterectomies on up to 25% of NA women during the 70's.

Is there a number of forced hysterectomies that we must reach before outrage kicks in? Is it more or less than the number of male castrations? Does it matter if they are not white?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This would be an abhorrent crime akin to atrocities in Africa, the former Yugoslavia, and Nazi Germany. This takes things to a whole other level.

They aren't even being fiscally responsible about it. I note that there are no forced vasectomies and those are much cheaper than hysterectomies. For that matter, so are tubal ligations. So this is nothing except torture. Gender specific and race specific.

I don't think we have enough details here to make a conclusion about what has actually happened. It raises an eyebrow, but right now the number is 5 over a period of several months. That isn't at the scale of an enacted policy yet.

No, right now the number stands at ONE person reporting 5. It seems unlikely that those were the only ones. This, btw, is not unlike the government policy that forcibly performed hysterectomies on up to 25% of NA women during the 70's.

Is there a number of forced hysterectomies that we must reach before outrage kicks in? Is it more or less than the number of male castrations? Does it matter if they are not white?

It is wrong. It should be a crime.

Though an atrocity requires magnitude meaning this was policy.

 

[Toni]

No, right now the number stands at ONE person reporting 5. It seems unlikely that those were the only ones. This, btw, is not unlike the government policy that forcibly performed hysterectomies on up to 25% of NA women during the 70's.

Is there a number of forced hysterectomies that we must reach before outrage kicks in? Is it more or less than the number of male castrations? Does it matter if they are not white?

It is wrong. It should be a crime.

Though an atrocity requires magnitude meaning this was policy.

That it was policy only compounds the atrocity. It can be policy and still be illegal.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well yeah.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It’s astounding that after a massive family separation operation, mass sexual assault of detainees, trapping immigrants in COVID-infected detention centers, and now reports of mass hysterectomies (which the US has done before), abolishing ICE is controversial.

Where’s the line?" / Twitter

Texas Tribune on Twitter: "NEW: ICE deported a crucial witness in an ongoing investigation into allegations of sexual assault and harassment at an El Paso immigrant detention center, according to the witness' lawyers.
With @ProPublica: https://t.co/63mFRBkJbD" / Twitter
noting
ICE deports a key witness of allegations of sexual assault and harassment | The Texas Tribune - "Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department inspectors general are investigating allegations that ICE guards assaulted detainees in camera blind spots."

Emma Vigeland on Twitter: "Remember when the right-wing was up in arms over @AOC calling ICE detention facilities "concentration camps?"" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "It wasn’t just the right wing.

The reason I didn’t choose a more comfortable term for “targeting & detaining groups largely by ethnicity w/o trial in camps w/ malnutrition, sexual assault, permanent psychological trauma + bodily harm” is bc we shouldn’t be comfortable about it." / Twitter

 

[lpetrich]

manny on Twitter: "In light of the latest horrible revelations at ICE facilities, I can't help but to recall when Republicans *and* Democrats were crying foul about @AOC calling them concentration camps. Last year I explained how historians agreed with her: https://t.co/4oQdTheJxT" / Twitter

With a video on this controversy.

Concentration camps are much older than Nazism, and some of them date back over a century. Spain in Cuba in 1896, the US in the Philippines in 1899, Britain in southern Africa in 1900. Concentration camps are not necessarily extermination camps, even if many people end up getting sick and dying in them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

ICE Almost Deported Immigrant Woman Who Says She Got Unwanted Surgery While Detained - https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/9136...-who-says-she-got-unwanted-surgery-while-deta

More coming forward. Number is up to 17. And it is worth noting, probably not the easiest to have a legal voice in ICE. So that number is depressed.

 

[lpetrich]

AOC Asks Why Abolishing ICE Is 'Controversial' as Democrats Demand Hysterectomy Investigation

Pelosi Statement on Whistleblower Complaint on Massive Health Care Abuse at ICE Detention Centers | Speaker Nancy Pelosi

If true, the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower complaint – including allegations of mass hysterectomies being performed on vulnerable immigrant women – are a staggering abuse of human rights. This profoundly disturbing situation recalls some of the darkest moments of our nation’s history, from the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks, to the horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, to the forced sterilizations of Black women that Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others underwent and fought.

The DHS Inspector General must immediately investigate the allegations detailed in this complaint. Congress and the American people need to know why and under what conditions so many women, reportedly without their informed consent, were pushed to undergo this extremely invasive and life-altering procedure.

Back to Newsweek.

In a statement to Newsweek, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) said: "These allegations are horrifying and must be investigated by Congress immediately.

"For too long, ICE has been the United States' agency for committing human rights abuses against immigrants, and these new allegations are nothing short of eugenics."

House Dems Call For Investigation Into Forced Hysterectomy Claims

Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform called for a federal investigation on Tuesday into allegations that detainees at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia were receiving unwarranted hysterectomies.

...
In the Tuesday letter to the DHS Inspector General, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and Chairman Jamie Raskin of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties requested "an emergency investigation into shocking allegations of medical atrocities and detainee mistreatment" at the ICDC.

 

[Testy Calibrate]

It's utterly crazy that only democrats are demanding this investigation. How the flying fuck can this be a partisan issue?

 

[Angry Floof]

It's utterly crazy that only democrats are demanding this investigation. How the flying fuck can this be a partisan issue?

The GOP has gone full dark side.

 

[southernhybrid]

It definitely needs to be investigated, but I'm not one to draw a conclusion until all the facts are in. I read a lot about this yesterday because a friend of mine asked me about it. The doctor who is accused of these hysterectomies has a record of fraud. He billed M'care and M'caid fraudulently some time ago. He settled by paying back about 500K. Here's the thing that really gets me angry. Why the fuck didn't Dr. Amin lose his license. If any nurse had committed fraud, she would lose her license and probably get jail time or probation. Doctors in this country are treated very differently than most professionals. This isn't the first time that I've known of a doctor getting away with a crime and not even losing his license. He claims he only did 1 or 2 hysterectomies and they were justified. I am skeptical of his claims, but he will be given the chance to prove his case.

I have also wondered if the doctor is the only one who is guilty, assuming the whistle blower is correct, or if ICE was actually involved. Regardless, that ICE facility sounds awful and needs to be shut down.

Knowing some of the shady things that some doctors do, makes me wonder if he is the only one involved. Hopefully, we will get to the bottom of this before too long. As shocking as it may sound to those who have never worked in healthcare, it's not all that uncommon for sleazy physicians to do unnecessary procedures simply to line their own pockets, with total disregard for their patients.