Democratic lawmakers have called for an investigation into reports that a doctor in Georgia has been performing hysterectomies on immigrant women held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement prison without their consent. The shocking claim first came to light in a whistleblower complaint filed by a nurse named Dawn Wooten, who works at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia. Wooten appeared on MSNBC on Tuesday night.
Dawn Wooten: “I had several detained women on numerous occasions that would come to me and say, 'Ms. Wooten, I had a hysterectomy. Why?' I had no answers as to why they had those procedures. And one lady walked up to me here this last time around, between October of '19 until July the 2nd, and said, ’What is he? Is he the uterus collector? Does he collect uteruses?' And I asked her what does she mean. And she says, 'Everybody that I talk to has had a hysterectomy.'”
In related news, ICE has temporarily halted the deportation of Pauline Binam, a Cameroonian mother who says she was involuntarily sterilized while detained in Georgia. Binam was already on the plane Wednesday when her deportation was stopped. She has lived in the United States since the age of 2.