Medical Atrocities at Irwin Get Long-Delayed Hearing in the Senate #DetentionKills Transparency Initiative FOIA Journal vol. 2022-5.
Watching Tuesday’s Senate Permanent Select Committee on Investigations hearing into the shocking whistleblower allegations and firsthand accounts that ended an ICE detention contract.
UPDATE 1: At 5:00AM on November 15, an embargoed copy of the Senate’s REPORT was released via an exclusive Bloomberg story by longtime, trusted immigration reporter Ellen Gilmer.
Here are some key findings highlighted in the report.
[The following was published/edited on November 14, 2022, perform the release of the Senate PSI report][
On Tuesday, November 15, 2022, a long-waited, previously cancelled Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) hearing on “Medical Mistreatment of Women in ICE Detention” will proceed. It’d be foolish to try and capture the epic struggle people inside fought and won to protect themselves and everyone who’d come next, and the struggle of survivors to find the resources to heal in a place where healing is possible.
So many others have very aptly done this job. In a sentence, though, here’s what this hearing is about: Two years ago, the Trump Administration halted transfers into the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia following allegations in a whistleblower report filed by a coalition of Georgia human rights movement organizations, which prompted a wide-ranging investigation that led the DHS Secretary Mayorkas to announce ICE would stop sending people in its custody to Irwin.
If we had just one sentence more, we’d share that as far as we can tell, the medical provider at the center of the allegations remains in practice, and the private prison corporation at the center of the allegations continues receiving lucrative federal contracts from ICE, stretching into the tens of millions each year (conservatively) for other facilities, while so many of the women harmed by these systems are still deported and struggling to rebuild what state violence destroyed.
“What’s the Truth?”
Presumably, all of the lawmakers who’ll participate in Tuesday’s hearing are interested in getting to the truth. Despite everything else they disagree on, perhaps they might all agree on a way to get there.
A day after the September 14, 2020, whistleblower report came out, a commentator widely read by people challenging the veracity of women’s stories offered a set of questions aimed at seeking the truth. It was skeptical, but fair-minded and reasonable.
According to the National Review columnist, the following questions might help lead to the truth:
Q1: “Does the doctor have a sterling professional record, or a battery of red flags that should have been known to ICDC authorities?”
A: It’s worth noting that Dr. Amin was not a Board-certified obgyn at the time he provided the care. Most medical professionals will tell you that this is not a “red flag”, per se, but probably undermines a claim to a “sterling professional record” as an OBGYN.
There was, however, an actual “red flag that should have been known to ICDC authorities.” Just before he began treating immigrant women locked inside Irwin, Dr. Amin and his associates paid $520,000 to the United States and the State of Georgia to settle a civil suit. This is not an admission of liability. It is evidence that several DOJ attorneys were willing to sign their names to the Complaint that initiated the case, under penalty of losing their law licenses, and that Dr. Amin and Co. either declined or weren’t able to get it dismissed from Court before paying half a million dollars to resolve it.
Key claims in the government’s case? Essentially, Amin & co-defendants were accused of fraudulently billing the federal government for unnecessary or unindicated medical treatments, including gynecological procedures. These treatments involved people in South Georgia who couldn’t afford their own care, and, like the women of Irwin, had barriers to choosing other providers both geographic and economic.
Women came forward following the whistleblower complaint sharing their own experiences with Dr. Amin. Some of those experiences were positive. Some were not.
But more to McLaughlin’s point, the investigation and reporting that followed the whistleblower report uncovered documentary evidence that ICDC officials—including Warden Paulk, and ICDC Inmate Services Director Marteka Georgia--did know about rough treatment Dr. Amin provided in at least one specific individual’s case, and several other unnamed ones. In response to a 2018 complaint emailed by the SPLC, which ran a Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative program site offering pro bono legal representation to folks locked insideICDC, officials found that patient another provider.
ICE knew, too, according to records obtained by Project South, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
So, does the above amount to a “sterling professional reputation” free from “red flags” of which ICDC officials should have been aware?
That doesn’t answer any questions about assaults or liability. It only answers the question National Review asked in the wake of the allegations.
Q2: How many hysterectomies are at issue?
According the ICE, the answer for a long time was “2.”
Then-Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, quietly changed that answer to “5” recommended, 3 total performed in response to then-Senator Kamala Harris. Apparently one person refused to go through with the hysterectomy they were scheduled for. It’s unclear who performed the third.
Why the U.S. government was never forced to publicly explain its inability to identify something as straightforward as the number of sterilizing procedures it paid a provider to perform is a question for the U.S. media. We don’t expect answers on that tomorrow.
One answer, however, might be the siloed nature of the government’s record-keeping for outside care provided to detained people. Given the documented absence of complete, reliable medical records and the U.S. government’s refusal to use its resources to locate, return to the U.S. and interview all of Dr. Amin’s patients, as well as the findings released by DHS-OIG at the beginning of this year suggesting an absence of effective communication and oversight, the true answer may not ever be known.
What is the number of allegedly nonconsensual sterilizing procedures the question suggests would be appropriate?
As women have said since the report came out, it wasn’t simply “hysterectomies” that were the issue. It was nonconsensual, invasive, and unnecessary gynecological procedures and medications. Surgical records obtained through FOIA indicate more than 40 such invasive procedures from 2017 until early October 2020, when the U.S. government cut off Dr. Amin’s access to the bodies of women inside Irwin.
Q3: “Is there any evidence . . . that this is a larger issue that one doctor employed by one detention facility?
Short answer: Yes. Medical abuse and neglect are rampant in ICE’s detention facilities, according to DHS-OIG, DHS whistleblowers, Congressional oversight bodies, and the families of those who perish as a result. Indeed, the very facility that served as ICE’s release valve for imprisoning women in Georgia — the Stewart Detention Center (ICE’s deadliest) - has been the subject of accusations of sexual assault and abuse by a male nurse. At least five women and their counsel allege these allegations were met with intimidation, retaliation, and a cover-up.
You can help support the nurse who blew the whistle: https://www.gofundme.com/f/whistleblower-nurse-in-need
A survivor who’s bravely spoken out: https://www.gofundme.com/f/wendydowe
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/28/irwin_detention_center_lawsuit_medical_abuse