Georgia detention center closed where women reported forced sterilizations

A Georgia detention center where women say they were subjected to unsolicited medical procedures and a Massachusetts jail where there were allegations of inhumane conditions will no longer be used to detain immigrants, the Biden administration said Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will cancel its contracts with the local public agency that manages the detention center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and with the private company that operates the Irwin County Detention Center, in Georgia.

Any individual the United States believes should remain in detention will be transferred to another facility, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said when he announced the move, which had been called for by immigrant advocates.

"Let me lay out a founding principle," Mayorkas said, "We will not tolerate mistreatment of individuals detained for civil immigration offenses or substandard detention conditions."

Read also This is what a detention center in the United States looks like in the midst of the immigration crisis

He added that ceasing use of the facilities is part of a campaign to push for “lasting improvements” in a detention system that immigrant advocates have long claimed holds people for too long and in inadequate conditions for civil immigration offenses. .

It also reflects a general effort to reverse the anti-immigrant policies that characterized federal policy during the presidency of Donald Trump.

At the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, a doctor was accused in September 2020 of performing non-consensual surgeries on female detainees.

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It was a nurse who sounded the alarm, recounting the high "rate of removal of the uterus" and episodes such as that of a migrant whose doctor removed the wrong ovary when she was going to intervene for a cyst.

Read also They deport a Mexican migrant who reported sexual abuse in a detention center in Texas

According to the Atlanta-based organization Project South, at least 17 women, including several Mexican immigrants, were subjected to sterilization procedures without their consent or without having the necessary information.

The DHS and the FBI federal police opened an investigation, and the Mexican government asked for explanations after identifying at least two of its national victims of these practices.

The other establishment, the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigration Detention Center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, was in the crosshairs of authorities after an intervention considered violent by local police against inmates who refused to be tested for the coronavirus in May 2020.

Via Twitter, Roberto Velasco, in charge of directing North American policy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed his satisfaction with the decision. “The SRE welcomes @DHSgov's decision to close a detention center in Irwin, Georgia, where women were subjected to medical malpractice. @ConsulMexAtl will continue to provide consular support to the affected Mexicans until responsibilities are established."

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