The Trump Administration has tried to deport a 36-year-old immigrant woman named Yanira from the U.S. even though she’s a witness in the investigation of the alleged forced hysterectomies occurring at detainment centers for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
She’s just one of 50 women who have blown the whistle on the alleged human rights abuse in U.S. immigration detainment facilities near the U.S. southern border.
“VICE News has uncovered the accounts of 15 women who said that they underwent gynecological procedures that they didn’t want, didn’t understand, or found deeply painful” while detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, the publication reports.
The U.S. has tried to deport Yanira and at least five other potential witnesses before they could testify in the investigation. She experienced hot flashes while in ICE custody and had hope to get estrogen medication she had taken since 2014 to help stop them. Instead, the doctors jammed his fingers, a Pap smear device, and a transvagical ultrasound wand inside of her “without being gentle or anything,” she says.
“Afterward, Yanira said that she bled for days. She needed to take ibuprofen,” VICE reports.
Amelia Wilson, an attorney with the Immigrants Rights’ Clinic at Columbia Law School who is working on Yanira’s case, told VICE News, “ICE is engaging in retaliatory deportations in an effort to silence witnesses and victims who are critical to the DOJ’s investigation into Dr. Amin’s monstrous activity,”
ICE issued a statement saying that it is cooperating with an investigation into the alleged forced gynecological work.