*MSNBC’s Chris Hayes spoke Tuesday night with nurse Dawn Wooten, who alleges that mass hysterectomies were performed at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Georgia.
“I had several detained women on numerous occasions that would come to me and say, ‘Ms. Wooten, I had a hysterectomy. Why?’ I had no answers as to why they had those procedures.”
A group of Democratic legislators calling on the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate the claims includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joaquin Castro and Sens. Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal.
“If true, the appalling conditions described in the whistleblower complaint – including allegations of mass hysterectomies being performed on vulnerable immigrant women – are a staggering abuse of human rights,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “This profoundly disturbing situation recalls some of the darkest moments of our nation’s history, from the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks, to the horror of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, to the forced sterilizations of Black women that Fannie Lou Hamer and so many others underwent and fought.”
Wooten worked at ICE’s Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Ga. until her sudden demotion in July. She filed a whistleblower complaint on Monday outlining what her lawyers called “recent accounts of jarring medical neglect at ICDC.”
Watch her interview on “All In with Chris Hayes” below:
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