THE UTERUS COLLECTOR

Earlier this month, multiple human rights organizations (Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and the South Georgia Immigrant Support Network) filed a complaint on behalf of women detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Georgia. Based on accounts from detainees and corroborated by a nurse, whistleblower Dawn Wooten who formerly worked at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC), the complaint alleges that a doctor, "the uterus collector," was carrying out mass hysterectomies.

“Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy – just about everybody. He’s even taken out the wrong ovary of a young lady,” Wooten said. “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,” one detained immigrant told Project South. She said she knew of five other women detained with her at ICDC who said they had undergone hysterectomies.

Following these allegations, thousands of articles were published across the United States and around the world with headlines reporting that the government was engaged in an ongoing campaign of eugenics directed at poor people of colour. From The Washington Post to Democracy Now! and Vox News, everyone was linking this case to historical medical abuses of every variety.

In response to the outcry, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, immediately called for an investigation. Following her, 173 members of Congress signed a letter declaring their horror and outrage at these allegations and calling on the Department for Homeland Security to investigate the claims.

An ICE official shared that:

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs 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.

Scheduled and unscheduled investigations of the Irwin County Detention Center, as are routine, show that the facility has to date been in continual compliance with all Performance-based National Detention Standards. In a statement, ICE said it won't comment further on the specifics of matters being handled by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) but that “ICE takes all allegations seriously and defers to the OIG regarding any potential investigation and/or results."

(So were these anonymous allegations made without any specifics that could reasonably be investigated, and all on the word of a single disgruntled former employee? It seems like it. But there has to be more here.)

Given the nature of the allegations, some reporters weren't going to wait around for an internal government review. The Associated Press conducted their own investigation with the help of lawyers and doctors. Their probe did not find evidence of mass hysterectomies. They also revealed that a lawyer who helped file the original complaint did not speak with any women who had undergone unwanted sterilization or a hysterectomy.

Staff attorney at the advocacy group Project South, Priyanka Bhatt, later admitted to The Washington Post that she only included allegations of mass hysterectomies because she wished to trigger an investigation to determine if they were true.

Records reviewed by the Associated Press also showed that one woman was given a psychiatric evaluation the same day she refused to undergo a surgical procedure known as dilation and curettage. Commonly known as "D&C," this procedure is typically prescribed to diagnose a condition if someone has abnormal uterine bleeding, if they experience bleeding after menopause, or it is discovered that they have abnormal endometrial cells during a routine test for cervical cancer. The test can verify cancer and precancerous conditions as well as uterine polyps that may result in life-saving interventions.

These reporters also reviewed records for one woman who received a hysterectomy. She reported irregular bleeding and was taken to see Dr. Amin, “the uterus collector,” for a D&C. Tissue analysis found signs of a carcinoma and Dr. Amin’s own notes indicate the woman agreed to having a hysterectomy eleven days after her diagnosis.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters that 20 of 24 female Mexican nationals being held at detention centers in the U.S. states of Georgia and Texas had been interviewed and that none of them had been subjected to such procedures. Mexican authorities reported that they had not yet found any evidence of a sterilization of any kind forced upon Mexican nationals held in migrant detention facilities in the United States.

So what the heck is going on?