ICE to End the Use of Georgia Facility at Center of Hysterectomy Allegations
he Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday morning that it will end its use of two facilities, including the
Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga., where a whistleblower alleges a doctor performed unwanted hysterectomies and other medical procedures without consent.
According to a statement from DHS,
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed Tae Johnson, acting secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to prepare to end the use of the facility “as soon as possible.” The Irwin County Detention Center is operated by La Salle Corrections, a private company. The preparations include “preservation of evidence for ongoing investigations, relocation of ICE personnel if necessary, and the transfer of detained noncitizens whose continued detention remains necessary to achieve our national security, public safety, and border security mission,” according to DHS.
“We have an obligation to make lasting improvements to our civil immigration detention system,”
Mayorkas said in a public statement. “This marks an important first step to realizing that goal. DHS detention facilities and the treatment of individuals in those facilities will be held to our health and safety standards. Where we discover they fall short, we will continue to take action as we are doing today.”
The second facility, the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, is also at the center of mistreatment allegations and is under federal investigation. DHS announced Thursday it is ending its contract with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO), which oversee’s the facility. A 2020 investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General found the BCSO violated the civil rights of immigrant detainees during an incident that occurred on May 1, 2020. On that day, detainees refused to consent to COVID-19 testing and isolation, according to a
report by the state’s Attorney General published in December 2020, and were met with “excessive and disproportionate” force, including a flash bang grenade, pepper-ball launchers, pepper spray canisters, anti-riot shields and canines.
“We are thrilled about this development,” Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director at Project South, said in a statement to TIME.
Project South, a legal and advocacy nonprofit based in Atlanta, is one of the organizations who published Dawn Wooten’s
whistleblower testimony that includes allegations that a doctor performed unwanted gynecological procedures on more than a dozen women detained at Irwin. “Given its extensively documented history of human rights violations, Irwin should have been shut down long ago. We will not rest until the women who suffered medical abuse at Irwin receive a measure of redress and compensation. And until ICE and the prison corporation LaSalle are held accountable for allowing the abuses to take place.”
Shahshahani is also co-council in a
class action lawsuit against ICE that was filed in December 2020 on behalf of the women detained at Irwin.
DHS will end the use of two of its facilities, including the Georgia detention center facing allegations of gynecological abuse.
time.com
More Than 40 Women File Class Action Lawsuit Alleging Medical Misconduct by ICE Doctor at Georgia Detention Center
ore than 40 women are now a part of a consolidated class action lawsuit against
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist accused of performing unnecessary or unwanted medical procedures, including hysterectomies, on women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
The
class action lawsuit was filed Monday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on behalf of 14 women, some of whom are still detained and others who have been deported, alleging Amin performed unnecessary and nonconsensual medical procedures on them as far back as 2018. Including the 14 named women, in total more than 40 women provided sworn testimony as part of the lawsuit alleging malpractice by the gynecologist, who is also under investigation by Congress and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General (OIG) after a former nurse at the facility,
Dawn Wooten, filed a whistleblower report on Sept. 14.
“This consolidated action is significant because we have been able to establish a pattern of medical abuse at Irwin,” Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director at
Project South and co-counsel on the lawsuit, tells TIME. “As part of the lawsuit we’re gonna show that ICE knew as far back as 2018 that there was medical abuse taking place.”
A September
investigation by the Associated Press said it could not find a pattern of mass hysterectomies performed, but revealed a pattern of nonconsensual medical procedures performed at Irwin. Since the whistleblower complaint, several lawsuits had been filed on behalf of individual women who alleged experiencing medical malpractice while being treated by Amin, but a Georgia judge ordered the lawsuits be consolidated. Amin is no longer treating patients at the facility, according to the
AP.
The lawsuit on behalf of 14 women alleges Amin performed unnecessary and nonconsensual medical procedures on them as far back as 2018.
time.com
CONSOLIDATED AMENDED PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS AND CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF AND FOR DAMAGES
And for further reading.
“HE’S THE UTERUS COLLECTOR” THE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN ICE DETENTION: AN OPPORTUNITY TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF FEDERAL DETAINEES IN PRIVATELY RUN FACILITIES