Jim Burress
,
Lily Oppenheimer
| WABE
November 24th, 2020
Twenty-two immigrant women detained at Georgia’s privately operated Irwin County Detention Center have now come forward with similar stories of medical abuse.
Many say they were forced to undergo procedures at the hands of a local gynecologist, Dr. Mahendra Amin. Amin has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
Several of the women who spoke out were quickly deported.
But on Tuesday, U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of Georgia agreed to halt further deportation proceedings.
Vice News reporter Emily Green is covering this ongoing story, and she spoke with WABE’s “All Things Considered” host Jim Burress.
Green said this halt is only temporary. In response to claims of retaliatory deportation, an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told VICE News in an email that “any implication that ICE is attempting to impede the investigation by conducting removals of those being interviewed is completely false.”
The email also said that ICE has been notifying the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General about planned transfers or removals of Irwin detainees who were former patients of Amin and “is fully supporting the efforts by both the DHS OIG and DOJ Civil Rights Division.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to WABE that Amin will no longer be seeing patients from the detention center.
