The press conference on the Georgia detention center story has started. First speaker is a staff attorney at Project South - Priyanka Bhat - does whistleblower advocacy. Whistleblower filed 9/8 regarding COVID issues at LaSalle. 1
Project South filed a larger complaint to the ICE inspector general. No testing of detainees for COVID despite symptoms and requests. 2
Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the detention center, is now up. This is the whistleblower. She has been employed for several years there. She is a sickle cell sufferer and single parent so she’s been very cautious. 3
No testing of anyone until June. No sanitizing. No PPE. She wasn’t provided a mask. She complained about no testing for symptomatic detainees. Was told that detainees would fake having COVID if that was an option. 4
She got demoted for complaining too much. Last straw was when she became symptomatic and she was written up for not coming in to work. Then she was demoted again. 5
Next - Kimberly Bollo-Aponte - Program Coordinator with Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. Over the last few years, LAHR has observed problems with for profit detention centers - lack of food, medical neglect. 6
No woman should undergo surgery without informed consent. People who complained were put in isolation and otherwise punished. 7
Reverend Leeann Culbreath is next - South Georgia Immigrant Support Network. Their volunteers support immigrants at LaSalle. Volunteers lives are also put at risk. Aware of numerous cases of COVID in the detention center. No disinfectant being used. Mold is everywhere. 8
Insects everywhere. No social distancing. Now outlining case of women being told they have an ovarian cyst. Many women given the same diagnosis. Put under anesthesia and then given hysterectomies. 9
Priyanka Bhatt - 40 cases of COVID confirmed at the facility. Also, there’s a similar whistleblower complaint at another facility. 10
Bhatt - The hysterectomy problem has been going on for several years. The complaint alleges 5 women who had the procedure over a couple of months without informed consent. 11
Reverend Culbreath - Women are shackled when they’re taken to these appointments in shackles. 12
That’s the end of the press conference, but they’re urging more whistleblowers employed at the facility to step forward. 13
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
780K! We sued @USCIS 2 years ago to call out gaming of the H-1B lottery that's happening in the IT staffing industry where applicants are filing 10+ lottery applications by getting multiple employer sponsors. @USCIS told the judge they were addressing the problem. Crickets since.
@USCIS@USCIS says in today's notice that more than half of the applicants were multiple filers and that they may refer some people for investigation of fraud. BUT. uscis.gov/working-in-the…
Yesterday, @USCISDirector Ur Jaddou noted that the agency was looking outside the box to find ways to make the immigration system run better. Here's one - scrap the advance parole requirement for adjustment applicants. It's not actually mandated by the statute. 1x
@USCISDirector The whole advance parole system is a creature of USCIS-created regulations based on the idea that people who depart the US while an adjustment application is pending have abandoned their applications. 2x
@USCISDirector Why does @USCIS make this assumption? Why would people who pay thousands of dollars have the intention of abandoning their cases just because they travel internationally? How about just deny the case if the person fails to show up for their interview. 3x
I’ve just learned from a very reliable lawyer of a disturbing incident involving a US Army soldier seeking to enter the US with humanitarian parole issued by USCIS (& stamped by State) who was entering the US to attend his naturalization interview. 1x
The soldier was flying from Qatar to Dallas (DFW). A CBP officer (I have his name but am not publishing it at this point) refused to honor the parole document, put him on a flight back to Qatar and seized his military ID. 2x
The officer accused him of being an “immigrant not in possession of an immigrant visa” and stamped “CANCELLED-DAL” in red letters all over the parole stamp. They also seized his Social Security card and Employment Authorization Document. 3x
And if you needed another reason to vote against prosecutor Amy Weirich, look no further. One more reason we need someone like @SteveMulroy901 in the job.