Two weeks ago, the Irwin County Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center in Georgia drew scrutiny and backlash after one of its employees spoke out against alleged medical neglect and forced hysterectomies on the immigrants being detained in the center. Last Saturday, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) traveled to Georgia to investigate the allegations.
Nurse Dawn Wooten, who has practiced for more than 10 years and worked at the Irwin Detention Center for three, filed a whistleblower complaint alongside several legal advocacy groups, including the Government Accountability Project and Project South. The complaint accused the center of medical negligence, poor safety precautions surrounding Covid-19, and an alarmingly high rate of hysterectomies being performed on women by an off-site doctor, in cases without the women’s consent. Wooten said that, when she spoke out about these practices, she was demoted and reprimanded. It is not the first time that complaints have been filed against this center, nor is it the only center in Georgia against which accusations of negligence have been made.
Many of the women subjected to the hysterectomy procedures are Spanish-speaking immigrants who did not appear to understand why they had undergone the procedure, said the complaint. Wooten called the off-site doctor performing these procedures, Dr. Mahendra Amin, “the uterus collector.” “Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy – just about everybody,” Wooten said. “That’s his specialty… Everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad,” she said. Procedural violations were also pointed out. One woman failed to be properly anesthetized, another went in to have a cyst drained and instead came out with a hysterectomy.
Additionally, the complaint alleged negligence in the center’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The center has refused to timely test detainees for the virus, concealed positive results, and failed to distance those who have tested positive from those not yet infected, said the complaint.
In response, a House delegation traveled to Georgia to inspect the controversial center. Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee and the CHC were among the delegation, including Representatives Hank Johnson, Pramila Jayapal, Sylvia Garcia, Lou Correa, and CHC Chairman Joaquin Castro.
The CHC has inspected several ICE facilities, in states like Texas and Nevada, since the beginning of the pandemic. The following statement was issued by congressman Castro:
The stories and scenes inside the Irwin County Detention Center were horrific. Women showed us the medical documents of gynecological procedures that they never gave consent for or fully understood. Women told us that they often refused medical care out of fear of never being able to have children. One woman described the experience being detained as torture. And make no mistake, this facility is prison. It’s a for-profit prison making money off of people’s suffering. The living conditions inside were ripe for a major coronavirus outbreak, and people detained had just received new masks because of our arrival. The list of human rights abuses is long and must be accounted for and fully investigated.
The Caucus urged investigation by the DHS Inspector General, the FBI, and Congress, and called for the release of those detained.
Photo: @HispanicCausus