The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (“DREDF”) is horrified by reports of coerced hysterectomies being performed on women in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) custody. On September 14, 2020, Project South filed an administrative complaint on behalf of immigrants detained at a Georgia detention center. Among other allegations of medical neglect, inadequate protection against COVID-19, and hazardous living conditions, the complaint alleges that women in the facility have been sterilized en masse without proper consent or medical necessity. Numerous women described being coerced into surgery and confused as to why the procedure was performed. Some described being yelled at by medical staff when they resisted the procedure. Many explained that they felt as if ICE was “experimenting with [their] bodies.”
The stories from the Georgia facility, described as a “concentration camp” by the immigrants detained there, are profoundly disturbing. They are not, however, without precedent in U.S. history. Between 1909 and 1979, over 60,000 men and women were forcibly sterilized pursuant to eugenics laws that directed State “mental institutions” to sterilize individuals they deemed “unfit to reproduce.” While these laws were repealed in the late 1900s, involuntary sterilizations continue to this day in prisons across the country. In 2010, a state audit revealed that over 250 women of color were sterilized in California prisons without their consent, and sometimes without their knowledge. In 2017, reports found that people incarcerated in Tennessee were offered reduced jail time in exchange for their reproductive capacity. While sterilization abuses have occurred in different settings over time, one fact remains constant: people with historically marginalized identities—disabled, female, Latina, Black, and/or LGBTQI+—have been overwhelmingly targeted.
ICE’s alleged forced sterilization of women in their custody, like the state-sponsored reproductive violence that preceded it, is a crime against humanity. Their actions, like those of state entities, must be swiftly and thoroughly investigated. Every individual, including immigrants, people of color, people with criminal records, people with disabilities, and others who have been historically disenfranchised, must be treated with respect and dignity regarding their lives and reproduction. DREDF stands in solidarity with the survivors of ICE’s violence in demanding that it, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), and the medical providers involved be held accountable for their heinous actions.