Viral news about hysterectomies in immigrant women

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is one of the border forces belonging to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which, when it comes to the immigration sector, has been a key player for the Trump administration.

Currently, ICE is in charge of protecting borders, preventing illegal immigration, and conducting operations around the US to detain undocumented immigrants, who managed to cross the borders without prior authorization.

ICE has been embroiled in a myriad of controversies since President Trump took office in 2017. To give a specific example, in mid-September 2020, the DHS received a legal complaint from a nurse who worked at one of ICE’s detention centers (located in Georgia), which states that the gynecologist assigned to assist immigrant women was performing mass sterilizations (hysterectomies), also known as uterus extraction, on immigrant women who did not need this procedure.

Naturally, due to the seriousness of the news, it went viral in a matter of hours. Therefore, multiple entities, activists and immigration attorneys raised their voices, asking the government to intervene immediately in the case and take pertinent decisions to protect the health of immigrants.

Currently, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is conducting a thorough investigation to find the root cause of the issue and take necessary precautions to avoid similar situations in the future.

Interviews with immigrant women involved in the case of sterilizations

A recent report by The New York Times reveals that there are at least 16 immigrant women involved in the mass sterilization case in Georgia. Not all of them had hysterectomies, but they did receive gynecological care from the doctor involved in the legal complaint.

Five gynecologists, who do not belong to the ICE medical team, reviewed the medical records of 7 immigrant women involved in the case.

The experts declare that:

• Medical records exaggerate the size of the cysts on the ovaries of immigrant women and many of them could have received different treatment before having a hysterectomy.
• The information in the medical records is quite similar, which calls into question the veracity of medical details of each patient.
• The symptoms described in the medical reports suggested other types of treatments before performing a surgical intervention.

Other than that, the doctor in charge of gynecological procedures at the Georgia immigration detention center had already been investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2015 for overcharging Medicare and Medicaid.

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Choose the right legal process for your immigration case

The main reason why ICE has been embroiled in controversy over the past few years is because the detention of undocumented immigrants has increased considerably. Therefore, conditions in its detention centers are not completely appropriate to protect the health of detainees, who are normally facing deportation proceedings.

Illegal immigration never brings positive repercussions, neither for the local immigration system, nor for foreigners who decide to cross borders without documentation.

Therefore, the best alternative is to seek reliable help to be able to choose the legal immigration process that best suits your current needs and start your journey in the US as soon as possible, without putting your integrity at risk.

If you have any questions about an immigration issue or relating to a case you may have currently in progress, then please don’t hesitate to contact us for a FREE Phone Consultation with one of our expert immigration attorneys.

Simply call Motion Law today at: (202) 918-1799.