Immigration and Customs Enforcement is again holding detainees at the southern Georgia jail it previously cut ties with amid allegations of non-consensual gynecological procedures. Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) attracted widespread media attention beginning in 2020, when a whistleblower alleged that mass hysterectomies were being performed on detainees without their consent.
ICDC began to receive immigrant detainees October 10, according to the Intercept. Currently, the facility is being used only to house adult men.
The specific allegation about hysterectomies was never substantiated. But the complaints prompted the Office of Inspector General’s first audit of how surgical procedures are authorized in ICE detention facilities. A lawsuit filed by dozens of women detained at ICDC in 2020 found a pattern of “inappropriate, overly aggressive” treatment.
“A nurse told me to get undressed, and I had to do so in front of a transport officer,” Karina Cisneros Precaido stated during her 2022 Senate testimony about medical abuse she experienced at ICDC. “I expected to get a Pap smear, but instead Dr. Amin told me to open my legs and he did a vaginal ultrasound. He told me I had a cyst on my ovary. He said he was going to give me a shot to try to dissolve the cyst, and if the cyst did not dissolve in a few weeks, I would need surgery. I did not have a chance to ask questions or say no.”
Dr. Mahendra Amin, the provider at the center of the allegations, was dismissed from his position but settled multiple defamation cases including against NBC for publishing the description of him as a “uterus collector.” ICE found that the two hysterectomies Amin performed were medically necessary, a finding that was upheld by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
The independent OB-GYN retained by OIG for the investigation stated that Amin’s practice was “woefully behind the times,” and that due to “a lack of knowledge or capability, [he] persistently uses inpatient, surgical options as diagnostic tools for benign clinical conditions.”
The 1,296-bed jail is privately operated by LaSalle Corrections.
The OIG made a series of recommendations for bringing care at ICDC up to standard, but they were mostly set aside when the ICE contract was terminated.
“The showers and bathrooms were covered in mold, and so were some of the cells,” Cisneros Precaido stated during her testimony. “We would try to use our sanitary pads and soap from the commissary to scrub away the mold. Even the water cooler had mold in the spout. The mold smelled. Sewage from an upper bathroom would leak into a lower bathroom.”
ICDC opened in 2010 and has mainly operated as an immigrant detention center. ICE cut the previous contract in 2021 and moved detainees to other facilities, but ICDC has remained open for detaining United States citizens since then. The 1,296-bed jail is privately operated by LaSalle Corrections.
Georgia is also home to two other privately operated immigrant detention centers: Stewart Detention Center, operated by CoreCivic, and the Folkston ICE Processing Center, operated by GEO Group. The Folkston facility is in the process of expanding to become the largest immigrant detention center in the country, with a capacity expected to exceed 3,000 beds.
Image via Irwin County Detention Center/Facebook