A ‘uterus collector’ in America
The TLDR: A legal complaint has exposed new horrors at immigration detention centres in the US. It alleges that at one such centre, the local doctor is performing mass hysterectomies—i.e. taking out their uterus—without the knowledge or consent of migrant women. The complaint also alleges that the centre refused to test or treat inmates for Covid—and severely punished them if they objected.
Trigger Warning: This explainer includes accounts of sexual assault.
These are camps for illegal migrants right?
There were 31,000 detainees in these camps in mid-April—down from 52,722 in September (immigration officials have been releasing detainees due to the pandemic). These do not include 4,000 children who are housed in separate facilities—most of whom have been forcibly taken from their parents.
None of them are illegal in any sense of the word.
- These people are fleeing gang violence, domestic abuse and poverty—typically from countries in Central America.
- Migrants formally request asylum at the southern border of the United States.
- At which point, they are put in temporary holding cells, and then moved to detention centers.
- They are held in these centers while they await a court hearing that will determine whether they can stay in the country.
- These centers only exist to ensure that they show up for the hearings.
- At one time, migrants were only put in ‘civil detention’ if they posed a risk to public safety or were considered a flight risk. But since Donald Trump became president, anyone who asks for asylum is thrown into these centers.
- Since 2017, 40 new detention facilities have opened—and most are run by private companies with very little oversight from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
- In the latest budget, the Trump administration has requested $4.1 billion. The aim: to expand detention facilities to accommodate 60,000 people on any given day.
- Two of the biggest private prison companies—CoreCivic and GEO Group—made $1.3 billion in ICE contracts, which account for around 30% of their revenue
- Since 2017, 39 adults have died in ICE custody or immediately after being released—mainly due to lack of medical care. Twelve of them committed suicide at these centers.
I heard these camps are horrific…
Yes, that’s the right word: horrific.
Overcrowded and unsanitary: Here’s a good description of living conditions:
“Adults and children have been held for days, weeks, or even months in cramped cells, sometimes with no access to soap, toothpaste, or places to wash their hands or shower. Some reports have emerged of children sleeping on concrete floors; others of adults having to stand for days due to lack of space. A May report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found 900 people crammed into a space designed to accommodate 125 at most.”
Even babies are not exempt: they are not given diapers and subject to extreme temperatures and “lights on 24 hours a day.”
Sexual assault: 14,700 complaints alleging sexual and physical abuse were lodged against ICE between 2010 and 2016. As per the most recent data available, 374 formal accusations of sexual assault were filed in 2018. Only a fraction of these are investigated. Women report being harassed, assaulted or forced to have sex with guards. Here’s one example:
“Most recently, in a May federal court filing in Houston, a Mexican woman said that she was in an ICE facility there in 2018 when she and two female detainees were moved to an isolated cell. Around midnight, three men wearing facial coverings entered the cell. They raped and beat them, according to the complaint. The immigrants were bused to Mexico hours later, where the woman eventually discovered she was pregnant from the assault.”
Solitary confinement: Detainees who protest or refuse to comply are routinely put in isolation cells. A 2019 media investigation found that “ICE routinely isolates detainees that it sees as difficult to manage, including the sick, disabled, and mentally ill, for extended periods of time in solitary confinement cells.” Solitary confinement is widely held as extremely cruel, and only to be used in exceptional circumstances.
How much worse can the latest case be?
Apparently, there is no end to the horrors, as the complaint reveals.
The complaint: was filed with the Department of Homeland Security—and is based in part on the information supplied by a whistleblower. Dawn Wooten was a licensed practical nurse who worked at a detention center in Georgia. But her account has been corroborated by another current member of the center’s medical staff—and four people who were currently or recently detained there.
There are two parts to this complaint. One relates to Covid safety (or lack thereof) and the other is about hysterectomies.
A ‘silent’ pandemic: The center refused to test detainees with Covid symptoms or offer them any medical treatment. They did not give the staff any protective equipment. And they took no measures to prevent the spread of the disease within detainees. Those who reported a fever were given cold medications without testing—even though the center had two rapid-testing COVID-19 machines.
But this is the worst bit:
“Detainees at Irwin, echoing those held at other detention centers, also said they were afraid to report their symptoms because they would be locked in solitary confinement, with little medical attention. ‘It is complete torture, because it’s like a punishment,’ one immigrant said, who declined to give their name for fear of reprisals. ‘I didn’t want to say I had a pain in my throat, or that I had symptoms, because I didn’t want to go back to the punishment cell.’”
Point to note: ICE is also throwing Covid patients into solitary on the pretext of quarantining them—without offering any medical care.
Also this: The center has reported 42 Covid cases. Across the US, there have been 5,686 cases and six related deaths.
A spate of hysterectomies: This is the most disturbing part of Wooten’s allegations. She says that a local gynecologist, Dr Mahendra Amin, routinely performed hysterectomies on migrant women—who often didn’t understand what was being done to them. According to Wooten:
“Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody… everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad. We’ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he’s taking everybody’s stuff out…That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly…is he collecting these things or something…Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world.”
Wooten’s account was confirmed by a detainee who talked to five women at the center who had hysterectomies:
“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.”
ICE’s response: The agency said it takes “all allegations seriously” but added: “That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve.”
So what now?
The Democrats plan to launch an independent investigation into the allegations—with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said, “If true, the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower complaint… are a staggering abuse of human rights.”
Much will depend on the outcome of the presidential election. Joe Biden has promised to dismantle much of Trump’s immigration policies—including the dreaded detention centers.
The bottomline: The detention centers are houses of horrors for good reason: to serve as a severe deterrent to any migrant planning to seek refuge in America. As Eric Levitz concludes, “The inhumane conditions are a policy. The cruelty is the point.”
Reading list
- The Intercept has the best reporting on the Covid aspect of the legal complaint. This recent piece has eye-opening excerpts from letters written by detainees.
- Law and Crime has the most details on the hysterectomies.
- New York Magazine offers a thoughtful take on whether the centers should be rightfully called “concentration camps.”
- The Guardian put together an excellent multimedia overview of the immigration prison industry.
- New York Times explains how ICE is spreading the virus by deporting Covid-positive detainees.
- Pro Publica investigated sexual assaults at the centers.
- Prefer to watch a good documentary? Check out ‘Immigration Nation’ on Netflix.
- Irony alert: The Trump administration just blocked imports of a variety of Chinese products citing human rights abuses.