Multiple Detained Women Say Their Reproductive Organs Were Removed Unnecessarily

Multiple women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement alleged on Wednesday that a doctor unnecessarily removed their reproductive organs, corroborating earlier reports of sterilizations without consent on migrant women from a detention facility in Georgia.

MSNBCs Chris Hayes reported on his show about at least two women who claimed that their reproductive organs were removed and they either did not fully consent to or were coerced into the procedures while detained at the privately run ICE Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla, Georgia.

One of the women told Hayes that she was pressured into a full hysterectomy while she was detained. The woman, whose identity is being withheld by MSNBC because shes in immigration proceedings and fears for her status, said the gynecologist who performed the removal was Dr. Mahendra Amin, who has also been accused in other reports of performing unwanted hysterectomies on immigrant women.

Woman claiming she received unnecessary hysterectomy at ICE facility in Georgia speaks with @chrislhayes:

I felt like I had no right to say anything. Dr. Amin just told me, you're gonna get a hysterectomy done, and schedule an appointment for that. I had no say in this. pic.twitter.com/2wxZiXwxfI

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Woman claiming she received unnecessary hysterectomy at ICE facility in Georgia speaks with @chrislhayes :

I felt like I had no right to say anything. Dr. Amin just told me, you're gonna get a hysterectomy done, and schedule an appointment for that. I had no say in this. pic.twitter.com/2wxZiXwxfI
All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) September 17, 2020

I felt like I had no right to say anything, the woman said in a recording to MSNBC. Dr. Amin just told me, Youre gonna get a hysterectomy done, and schedule an appointment for that. I had no say in this.

Amins lawyer told BuzzFeed News the doctor is aware of the allegations and vigorously denies them, adding that the gynecologist has dedicated his adult life to treating a high-risk, underserved population in rural Georgia.

Hayes also reported about an immigrant, who had come to the U.S. at age 2 from Cameroon, who said one of her fallopian tubes was removed without her consent while she was detained at ICDC. Pauline Binams lawyer alleged she went to the doctor for a procedure to remove tissue from inside the uterus but that when she woke up after surgery, she was told a fallopian tube had been removed and that she had very little chance of becoming pregnant.

According to MSNBC, ICE was prepared to deport Binam on Wednesday morning just two days after a whistleblower complaint alleged there had been mass sterilizations. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) intervened, and Binam was taken off the plane.

The procedure Pauline Binam had was actually a salpingectomy, not a hysterectomy.

Binam went in for a different procedure but when she woke up after surgery was told she had a fallopian tube removed which nevertheless decreased her chances of becoming pregnant. https://t.co/T6vFjYLQUU pic.twitter.com/1P5c2ykz0P

Adolfo Flores (@aflores) September 16, 2020","type":"rich","meta":{"author":"Adolfo Flores","author_url":"https://twitter.com/aflores","cache_age":86400,"description":"The procedure Pauline Binam had was actually a salpingectomy, not a hysterectomy. 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The procedure Pauline Binam had was actually a salpingectomy, not a hysterectomy.

Binam went in for a different procedure but when she woke up after surgery was told she had a fallopian tube removed which nevertheless decreased her chances of becoming pregnant. https://t.co/T6vFjYLQUU pic.twitter.com/1P5c2ykz0P
Adolfo Flores (@aflores) September 16, 2020

Several groups filed a complaint made public on Monday on behalf of whistleblower Dawn Wooten, a nurse who worked full time at the facility until July. The complaint alleges that officials have created unsanitary conditions and allowed for jarring medical neglect at ICDC.

Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy just about everybody, Wooten said of Amin in the complaint. Hes even taken out the wrong ovary on a detained immigrant woman.

ICDC is operated by LaSalle Corrections. The for-profit prison company is currently facing a lawsuit over a death at a county jail it runs on the border of Texas and Arkansas.

LaSalle has a corporate culture of treating all inmates as fakers, says the lawsuit over Holly Barlow-Austins senseless death at the Bi-State Jail. When inmates report medical problems, LaSalle guards and nurses accuse them of feigning illness or distress.

LaSalle told MSNBC that the company has a strict zero-tolerance policy for any kind of inappropriate behavior in our facilities and strongly denies any allegations of misconduct.

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The U.S. has a long history of performing forced medical operations on marginalized groups as a way to try to bolster white supremacy. Up to 70,000 Americans , most of whom were women, were forcibly sterilized from the early 1900s to the 1970s, a time in which 32 states had eugenic-sterilization laws . The victims were deemed unfit to bear children because of eugenics the idea that people who are non-white, poor, mentally ill or disabled must be bred out of future generations.

More than 170 House representatives on Wednesday urged an immediate investigation from the Department of Homeland Securitys inspector general into the allegations of mass sterilizations and demanded an update on the status of an investigation by Sept. 25.

This shameful history of sterilization in the United States, in particular sterilization of people of color and incarcerated people, must never be repeated, a letter from the representatives said. Yet, the similarities to the accounts of immigrant women and nurses in the Irwin County Detention Center today are eerily similar.