FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Bipartisan Senate Hearing Validates Whistleblower Nurse Dawn Wooten’s Disclosures that Numerous Immigrant Women Underwent Nonconsensual, Unnecessary Gynecological Procedures

ICE Health Director Admits Would Not Have Known But For The Whistleblower Complaint

WASHINGTON — On November 15, 2022, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs conducted a hearing on Medical Mistreatment of Women in ICE Detention. The protected whistleblower disclosures of Government Accountability Project client, nurse Dawn Wooten, to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress regarding health and safety failures at the Irwin County Detention Center (“ICDC”) in Georgia prompted the Committee’s 18-month investigation that culminated in today’s hearing and its accompanying report.

In September 2020, Ms. Wooten blew the whistle on failures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and that women in ICDC were being subjected to horrific nonconsensual and invasive gynecological procedures. Her truth-telling opened the door for immigrant women survivors of medical mistreatment to share their accounts of abuse, further catalyzing multiple agency and congressional investigations and ultimately leading DHS to end its immigration contract at ICDC. Ms. Wooten’s decision to blow the whistle, however, was also met with severe retaliation: she was forced out of her position, received security threats, has...

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