House Democrats demand answers on alleged medical abuse, lack of COVID protections at ICE detention facility
This article features our client Dawn Wooten and was originally published here.
House Democrats are demanding answers and documents from a private prison company running an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia that’s come under fire for allegedly failing to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and allowing women to undergo sterilizations without consent.
Reps. Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney, chairs of the House Homeland Security and Oversight committees, respectively, subpoenaed LaSalle Corrections, which manages the Irwin County Detention Center, according to Politico.
A nurse alleged in September that several women held in the Irwin County center were sterilized without consent. She also alleged that immigrant detainees were put in danger of contracting COVID-19 because visiting guidelines were routinely ignored.
The House committees launched investigations in September, but LaSalle said its contract with ICE barred it from sharing documents without the agency’s consent. The private firm refused to provide a copy of its contract, according to Thompson and Maloney.
“Despite the seriousness of the allegations taking place at their facility, LaSalle has stonewalled our Committees since we began our investigation in September,” Thompson and Maloney said in a joint statement. “They have provided us no documents, refused to share their contract with ICE, and have consistently fed us conflicting information. Their claim that they need approval from ICE to communicate with Congress is baseless. By refusing to provide even the most basic information about the treatment and care provided — at taxpayer expense — to women detained at ICDC, LaSalle is actively obstructing the Committees’ efforts to examine the troubling allegations and get answers to the American people.”
According to medical records of four women and interviews with attorneys, Dr. Mahendra Amin, a gynecologist linked to the facility, performed several unwanted surgeries including hysterectomies and other procedures jeopardizing immigrant women’s ability to have children, the Associated Press reported. The AP’s review found Amin had conducted surgeries on at least eight women, but the AP did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies that nurse Dawn Wooten had alleged occurred at the center.
Immigration authorities later told AP that they stopped sending detained women to Amin.
In September, ICE Acting Director Tony Pham said: “If there is any truth to these allegations, it is my commitment to make the corrections necessary to ensure we continue to prioritize the health, welfare and safety of ICE detainees.”
LaSalle at the time said it “strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct.”