Class Action Against ICE and Georgia Doctor Alleging Medical Abuse
More than 40 of the women who were allegedly subjected to invasive medical procedures without consent by a Georgia gynecologist while in immigration detention have filed a class-action lawsuit against a doctor and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reports Rowaida Abdelaziz for HuffPost. The women also allege in the lawsuit that ICE and LaSalle Corrections officers at the Irwin County Detention Center retaliated against the women who spoke out about the abuse. At the press conference about the lawsuit, a 21-year-old detainee, told her story: “I just feel like I have no control over my body anymore. … The people that we trust, the medical staff that is here, we can’t trust them anymore. We don’t know what they are doing with our bodies.”
The 160-page class action complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia with the help of several organizations and law firms, including the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Atlanta’s Dreyer Sterling, and New York’s Morningside Heights Legal Services.
KJ