Lawyers allege abuse of migrant women by gynecologist for Georgia ICE detention center
I was brought up by the American dream that you treat people the way you want to be treated," said a nurse who filed a whistleblower complaint.
WASHINGTON — A nurse who worked at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Irwin County, Georgia and four lawyers representing clients there are claiming that immigrant women are routinely being sent to a gynecologist who has left them bruised and performed unnecessary procedures, including hysterectomies.
The doctor, who three lawyers identified as Dr. Mahendra Amin, practicing in Douglas, Georgia, has continued to see women from the Irwin County Detention Center for the past several years despite complaints from his patients.
Amin was the subject of a Justice Department investigation in 2015 for making false claims to Medicaid and Medicare. As a result, he and other doctors involved paid $525,000 in a civil settlement, according to the Justice Department.
The lawyers identified the doctor after a whistleblower complaint to the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security was filed by Dawn Wooten, who worked as a nurse inside the facility. She said in the complaint that detainees were not getting Covid-19 tests and other needed medical care. The complaint was first reported by the Intercept.
Wooten worked full time as a licensed practical nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, until being demoted in July.
The complaint cites both allegations from unnamed detained immigrants and Wooten.
The facility houses immigrant detainees in the custody of ICE, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security. It also houses inmates for Irwin County and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network filed the complaint on behalf of detained immigrants at the center and Wooten.
Wooten was demoted in July from a full-time nurse to “as-needed” after missing work because she had coronavirus symptoms. She said she believes the demotion was in retaliation for raising coronavirus protocol concerns, according to the complaint.
She also said that there was not enough active testing of the immigrant detainees for the coronavirus and that the facility was not “reporting all these cases that are positive,” meaning the number of cases at the facility was possibly much higher than that reported by ICE.
Elizabeth Mathren, a lawyer who represented several women who saw Amin through her work with the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she was employed from 2017 to 2019, said she brought their complaints to managers of the detention facility.
"Two to three years ago, I had a face-to-face conversation with (someone in management). I was so disturbed. I begged her to get my client treatment with a different doctor. I told her I had heard from multiple people that he was rough, that they were scared to go to him, that they didn't understand what he was doing," said Elizabeth Mathren, who represented several women through her work with the Southern Poverty Law Center beginning in 2017.
Mathren she had at least one client report bruising after being examined by Amin.
But Mathren said immigrant women have continually been sent to Amin, despite concerns. The facility is privately contracted by LaSalle Corrections.
In a statement, a company spokesperson said, "LaSalle Corrections has a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of inappropriate behavior in our facilities and takes all allegations of such mistreatment seriously. Our company strongly refutes these allegations and any implications of misconduct at the ICDC."
A woman who answered the phone at Amin’s practice hung up the phone when asked for comment.
Benjamin Osorio, another lawyer representing women in the Irwin County facility, said two of his clients received hysterectomies that they believe may have been unnecessary.
One of the women, who is of child-bearing age, was told she needed to have a hysterectomy after Amin found ovarian cysts, Osorio said. She was advised that they were cancerous, but her records indicate she was not given a biopsy to confirm the cancer, he said. In another case, he said, his client was told she had stage 4 cervical cancer and would need a hysterectomy and chemotherapy. But after her hysterectomy, an oncologist in Charlotte said she did not have cancer, according to Osorio.
Another lawyer, Sarah Owings, said she has heard of many women who are told they have ovarian cysts that need to be removed or drained.
"I don’t think this is necessarily a systemic sterilization by ICE. I think this is the kind of thing that is allowed to flourish in the course of poor oversight and terrible, inhumane conditions of confinement," said Owings.
In her complaint, Wooten said some of her patients told her they were afraid to go to a doctor they called the "uterus collector," according to the complaint.
In an interview with NBC News, Wooten said, "I had a detainee that asked me, she said, 'What is he doing Ms. Wooten, collecting all of our uteruses?' And I just looked at her puzzled because I didn’t have an answer."
"The new shocking revelations about the abuses against women's bodies must lead to the immediate closure of this horrid facility," Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director at Project South, said in a statement. "ICE and the private prison corporation must be held accountable."
In a statement responding to Wooten's allegations, a spokesperson for ICE said, "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.”
In response to the lawyers' allegations about medical procedures, Ada Rivera, medical director of the ICE Health Service Corps, said, "All female ICE detainees receive routine, age-appropriate gynecological and obstetrical health care, consistent with recognized community guidelines for women’s health services."
"According to U.S. Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) data, since 2018, only two individuals at Irwin County Detention Center were referred to certified, credentialed medical professionals at gynecological and obstetrical health care facilities for hysterectomies in compliance with National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) standards. Based on their evaluations, these specialists recommended hysterectomies. These recommendations were reviewed by the facility clinical authority and approved."
She added, "Out of respect for the process of matters pending before the OIG, ICE does not comment prematurely on reported allegations, and ICE intends to fully cooperate with any resulting investigation by the OIG."
The agency said it is committed to the safety and welfare of those in its custody and its facilities are subject to regular inspections. The Irwin County Detention Center has repeatedly been found to operate in compliance with ICE’s performance standards, the agency said.
Shredding medical request forms
Wooten alleged in her complaint that men and women at the detention center “overwhelmingly reported not being tested for Covid-19 from March until August 18,” when those in the ICE facility were given the option to be tested.
A woman reported that 100 women slept in a unit where women “coughed, had fever and other discomforts, but officers did not listen to them when they reported their health problems,” and that they were never tested for Covid-19, according to the complaint.
“After demanding that the sick women be taken to the medical unit, she reported that the women were finally taken but were brought back within an hour and just given pain killers,” the complaint said.
Wooten also claimed that it was common practice for a sick call nurse to shred medical request forms from detainees requesting to go to the medical unit and fabricate records such as vital signs without seeing the patient seeking help, the complaint said.
ICE said in its spokesperson's statement that its epidemiologists have been continually tracking the outbreak, regularly updating its infection prevention and control protocols, and issuing guidance to staff for the management of potential exposure among detainees.
ICE said on its website that as of Sept. 13, there were 42 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among its detainees at Irwin County Detention Center, and 5,772 in all of its facilities, with six overall deaths.
nbcnews
Sept. 15, 2020
By Jacob Soboroff, Julia Ainsley and Daniella Silva
ckckndu 發表於 2020-9-16 08:27 AM
接受了子宮切除手術就可以入籍美國嗎...
根據英國BBC取得的情報,
由Trump / 白宮 -> the Department of Homeland Security / 國土安全部 -> Irwin County Detention Center
即是由 美國特務機關 外判給 私營組織 去幹這些傷天害理的勾當,
目的是防止滯美難民有在美國出生的子女取得美國國籍,繼而以家屬團聚理由,令難民全家取得美國國籍。
備註:美國憲法第十四修正案 / Birthright citizenship in the United States.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
ICE whistleblower: Nurse alleges 'hysterectomies on immigrant women in US'
Advocacy groups have filed a complaint against a migrant detention centre in the US, alleging medical neglect and a lack of virus safety measures.
The complaint condemns the practices and conditions at the private Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
It is based on the allegations of a whistleblower, a nurse identified as Dawn Wooten.
She worked at the centre, which houses immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As part of her complaint, filed on Monday, Ms Wooten expressed concerns about the high number of hysterectomies performed on Spanish-speaking women at the centre.
The nurse said detained women told her they did not fully understand why they had to get a hysterectomy - an operation involving the removal of all or part of the uterus.
The complaint also alleges "jarring medical neglect" during the coronavirus pandemic, including a refusal to test detainees with symptoms and fabricating medical records.
"I became a whistleblower, now I'm a target," Ms Wooten said at a press conference on Tuesday. But, "I'll be a target anytime", she said, rather than staying a part of what she called an "inhumane" system.
Speaking to reporters, Ms Wooten alleged gross misconduct at the centre with respect to Covid-19 precautions, and said she was demoted after protesting the conditions and staying home while symptomatic.
Immigration detention centres in crisis
Project South, the Georgia Detention Watch, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network filed the complaint on behalf of detained immigrants and Ms Wooten.
The complaint has been filed with the watchdog that oversees the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for ICE. According to campaigners, there are between 500 and 800 individuals at the centre currently, where bed capacity is 1,200.
In statements released on Monday, ICE said it was taking the allegations seriously and was "firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody".
The agency told the BBC that "anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate scepticism they deserve".
In response to allegations about Covid-19 safety, an ICE spokesman said: "ICE epidemiologists have been tracking the outbreak, regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols, and issuing guidance to ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC) staff for the screening and management of potential exposure among detainees."
The BBC has contacted LaSalle Corrections, the private company that runs Irwin County Detention Center, for comment.
What does the complaint allege?
The complaint details "jarring accounts from detained immigrants and Ms Wooten regarding the deliberate lack of medical care, unsafe work practices, and absence of adequate protection against Covid-19".
It summarises the disclosures Ms Wooten made to the DHS's watchdog, and quotes unidentified detainees extensively.
Allegations included refusal by the facility to test symptomatic detainees, failing to isolate suspected cases, and not encouraging social-distancing practices.
The complaint has been filed with the watchdog that oversees the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for ICE. File image
In a written testimony submitted to Congress in July, LaSalle Corrections said its facilities had been tracking the outbreak "regularly updating infection prevention and control protocols".
The complaint also said that Ms Wooten and other nurses were alarmed by the "rate at which the hysterectomies have occurred" at the centre.
Ms Wooten alleged that one doctor removed the wrong ovary from a young detainee and that "everybody he sees has a hysterectomy".
"We've questioned among ourselves like, goodness he's taking everybody's stuff out…That's his speciality, he's the uterus collector," she said in the complaint.
One detainee, interviewed by Project South, likened the centre to "an experimental concentration camp", adding: "It was like they're experimenting with our bodies."
Other allegations include delaying medical care for detained immigrants. Ms Wooten alleged that it was "common practice for the sick call nurse to shred medical request forms from detained immigrants".
Project South lawyer Priyanka Bhatt said on Tuesday there have been reports about issues surrounding women's health at the facility going back several years, including lack of prenatal care.
Allegations of unsanitary conditions at the centre's medical unit were included in the complaint too. In a letter, another immigrant described the medical unit as being "dirty and with animals like ants and insects, with only one bed, toilet and sink".
Azadeh Shahshahani, a human rights attorney at Project South, called on the DHS to carry out an immediate investigation into the allegations.
"For years, advocates in Georgia have raised red flags about the human rights violations occurring inside the Irwin County Detention Center," she said. "Ms Wooten's whistleblowing disclosures confirm what detained immigrants have been reporting for years."
美國紐約時報 / The New York Times 早就有專題報導,
Trump政權/共和黨激進勢力,刻意放任瘟疫在難民營散佈,再把有毒難民強制推送到南美洲,用心險惡! Why Is the United States Exporting Coronavirus?
Holding asylum seekers, immigrants and others in facilities where the virus easily spreads only to later send them to other nations is a public health hazard — here and abroad.
On March 21, the Trump administration drew on a federal law on public health to effectively shut the borders to all migrants and asylum seekers in order to avert the “serious danger” of a communicable disease arriving from abroad.
That makes it all the more bitterly ironic that the United States, with the largest number of coronavirus cases in the world, is now consciously spreading the pandemic beyond its borders by continuing to deport thousands of immigrants, many infected with the coronavirus, to poor countries ill equipped to cope with the disease.
President Trump and his senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, have long shown themselves impervious to criticism of the effectiveness and morality of their hard-line policies. Yet in this pandemic, mass deportations are not only cruel but also dangerous to public health abroad and at home. Dangerous because seeding and fanning the pandemic in any country, let alone those suffering from corruption and poverty, will only prolong the health crisis and worsen the conditions that led to mass migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Haiti and Mexico.
It’s happened before. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration signed legislation that made it easier to deport gang members from California to El Salvador, where they became the progenitor of violent gangs that spread through the region, sending tens of thousands of their victims to seek refuge in the United States. One of the gangs, MS-13, is often cited by President Trump as an example of the risk of letting in immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Guatemala offers an illustration of the problem today. In late April, its government reported that nearly a fifth of the country’s coronavirus cases were linked to deportees from the United States. On one flight of what is known as ICE Air, the deportation fleet run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 71 of 76 deportees tested positive for the coronavirus. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went to Guatemala to check on the claim, 12 deportees selected at random all tested positive.
The Guatemalan government temporarily suspended accepting deportation flights, prompting Mr. Trump to threaten penalties against countries that “denied” or “delayed” accepting deportees. The flights are operating. Returning migrants, meanwhile, have become pariahs, subjected to threats and violence as the “contagiados,” the infected. Similar accounts have come from other countries receiving the expelled migrants. The United States, said the health minister of Guatemala, has become the “Wuhan of the Americas.”
Though deportations are down from the 23,103 that ICE reported in January, probably as a result of fewer arrivals through the closed border, they are continuing: 18,811 in March; 9,832 in April; 7,411 in May; and 2,221 in the first 13 days of June, according to figures provided by ICE. The agency said that since April 26 it has been testing “some aliens in custody and prior to removal.” But ICE said it was getting only about 2,000 tests per month from the Department of Health and Human Services, and so could test only a “sample” of the population. ICE is believed to have about 32,000 immigrants in detention centers across the United States in facilities where the virus can easily spread.
The responsible, not to mention humane, response when the pandemic struck would have been to suspend deportations — and to release as many immigrants as possible from detention centers that, like prisons across the United States, have become incubators of the pandemic. That is what Democratic lawmakers, human rights organizations and the United Nations urged, and what the countries to which infected migrants were being sent hoped for. Most European countries have put deportations on hold.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter in April accusing the Department of Homeland Security of “exploiting” the pandemic “by claiming new, sweeping powers to summarily expel large, unknown numbers of individuals arriving at our border in clear contravention of existing federal laws.” The U.N. Network on Migration, which includes the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. refugee agency, called on all governments on May 13 to suspend “forced returns” during the pandemic, arguing that deportations create serious health risks for everyone — “migrants, public officials, health workers, social workers and both host and origin communities.” The nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch also called for a moratorium on deportations, as well as a halt to involuntary transfers of migrants between facilities.
But there has been no grounding of ICE Air flights. Dozens of deportation flights have continued monthly, with destinations in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Jamaica, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which tracks ICE Air flights through public records. Unaccompanied youths have become a special target for fast-track deportations. Last week, a federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked the deportation of a 16-year-old Honduran with a stern reprimand to the government for its overly broad use of health laws to pursue its restrictionist immigration agenda.
At a closed meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on April 17, the acting ICE director, Matthew T. Albence, explained that a broad release would signal that the United States was not enforcing its immigration laws, which would create a “huge pull factor” and cause a “rush at the borders.”
That show-no-mercy logic will not bow to common sense. That makes it all the more imperative for Congress, the courts and nongovernmental organizations to continue seeking an end to the administration’s dangerous deportation drive, and to expose its immigration policies for the assault on American values that they represent.作者: cgh1478 時間: 2020-9-17 08:06 PM
[attach]133163762[/attach] Nancy Pelosi demands investigation into hysterectomy claims at ICE centre
The top congressional Democrat, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has joined mounting calls for an investigation into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre in Georgia accused of sending migrant women held there to have hysterectomies without their full consent.
Pelosi branded the substance of allegations presented by a whistleblowing nurse “a staggering abuse of human rights”.
The nurse, Dawn Wooten, who worked at Irwin county detention centre for three years, made a whistleblower complaint, filed on her behalf on Monday in which she accused the centre of negligence, poor safety precautions, including around the spread of coronavirus.
She cited dangerous and unsanitary conditions and an alarmingly high rate of hysterectomies performed on Spanish-speaking women who she said she and other nurses feared did not understand what procedure they were undergoing.
“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,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“The DHS [Department of Homeland Security] inspector general must immediately investigate the allegations detailed in this complaint.”
The nurse and four lawyers representing clients at the centre are claiming that immigrant women are routinely sent to a gynecologist who has left them bruised and performed unnecessary procedures, including hysterectomies, according to a report by NBC News.
Three lawyers identified the gynecologist as Mahendra Amin, practicing in Douglas, Georgia, who underwent a federal investigation in 2015 over payments, which resulted in a settlement.
Elizabeth Mathren, a lawyer who represented several women who saw Amin said she took their complaints to the detention facility.
It comes as more than 160 Democrats signed a letter addressed to the DHS inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, demanding an “immediate investigation”.
The letter, dated Tuesday, said: “These reports hearken back to a dark time in US history in which 32 states passed eugenic-sterilization laws, resulting in the sterilization of between 60 and 70 thousand people in the early 1900s.”
It adds: “The reports of mass hysterectomies cause grave concern for the violation of the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights of detained people. Everyone, regardless of their immigration status, their language, or their incarceration deserves to control their own reproductive choices, and make informed choices about their bodies.”
The letter requests a response and a briefing on the status of the investigation by 25 September.
Ice, which comes under the umbrella of the DHS, said on Tuesday it would cooperate with an investigation but denied claims of extensive hysterectomies, claiming it has performed only two on detainees at the centre since 2018.
Ada Rivera, the medical director of the Ice Health Service Corps, said in a statement: “The accusations will be fully investigated by an independent office, however, Ice vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures.”
She added: “To be clear, medical care decisions concerning detainees are made by medical personnel, not by law enforcement personnel. Detainees are afforded informed consent, and a medical procedure like a hysterectomy would never be performed against a detainee’s will.”
However, the complaint alleged “jarring medical neglect” and “high rates of hysterectomies done to immigrant women”.
The whistleblower claimed there were issues over “proper informed consent” for some of the hysterectomies. The centre is also accused of refusing to test detained immigrants who had either been exposed to coronavirus or had symptoms.
Wooten said in the complaint: “These immigrant women, I don’t think they really, totally, all the way understand this is what’s going to happen, depending on who explains it to them.”
The claims against the centre have prompted widespread political outrage, chiefly among senior Democrats.
Joaquín Castro, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman, praised Wooten’s “courageous choice to speak up” and said “these horrors must not remain hidden” as he called for an immediate investigation.
He added: “The American people need to know exactly why and under what conditions that vulnerable women in Ice custody underwent hysterectomies.
“Were Trump administration officials aware of any coerced procedures, and if so, what actions did they take, if any, to stop this abuse? Congress is already examining this disturbing complaint, and the DHS inspector general must immediately investigate these serious allegations by conducting thorough on-the-ground inspections and not relying on statements from Ice agents and private contractors.”
Senator Cory Booker sent a letter to the DHS Office of Inspector General urging them to “immediately conduct a thorough in-person investigation” into the centre and other detention centres across the US.
He wrote: “This whistleblower complaint is stunning and, if true, paints a disturbing picture at the Irwin county detention center … Given the serious nature of the complaint, I urge your office to immediately conduct a thorough in-person investigation of the Irwin county detention center.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “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?”
The Guardian is seeking comment from Ice, LaSalle Corrections, the Louisiana-based company that runs the Irwin centre, and the DHS, but has not yet received responses.
A company spokesperson denied to NBC that there had been any wrongdoing and refuted the allegations. NBC contacted Amin’s office and the person answering hung up the phone.
作者: lungzi 時間: 2020-9-19 02:12 AM
沒圖沒影片沒真相~
話說犯罪者是沒有人權地。
但是新疆集中營關的只是一般人。
基本上是沒有比較的涵意…作者: xeno-2007 時間: 2020-9-19 04:45 AM