The appalling new whistleblower complaint reporting the use of forced and coerced hysterectomies at Irwin County Detention Center is just the latest chapter in the chronicle of horrors that detained people face in ICE detention.
Let's talk about this.
The whistleblower, who is represented by Project South and the Government Accountability Project, is a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center.
She came forward to report the sheer number of these procedures and that many who had received them didn't appear to understand why.
Forced sterilizations are a tool of white supremacy that have long been used against indigenous people, immigrants, Black and Brown people, people with disabilities, and intersex people in this country.
Irwin County Detention Center — where the reported hysterectomies took place — is run by LaSalle Corrections, a for-profit provider.
Corporations are profiting off the misery and violence caused by ICE detention.
81% of people in ICE detention are in facilities owned and/or operated by a private provider.
But that number jumps to 91% when you look at facilities opened under Trump.
In recent months, we've heard reports of:
➖ Systemic sexual abuse by ICE staff
➖ Increased use of force against detained people
➖ Refusal to test people to keep COVID-19 reported numbers artificially low
➖ ICE spreading COVID by unnecessarily transferring detained immigrants
In August, reports emerged of a "pattern of sexual assault" at a detention facility in El Paso.
This week, the brave woman who came forward to report the abuse she and others had suffered was deported.
19 people have died in ICE detention since October 2019.
It has been the deadliest fiscal year for ICE detention since 2006.
People at detention facilities around the country have reported the inability to get even the most basic supplies to keep themselves safe from COVID-19, including masks, sanitization supplies, and access to tests.
The system is designed to silence, ignore, and harm the immigrants it detains.
The atrocities ICE has committed are too great to ignore.
Congress should defund and dismantle ICE.
We will fight to end this cruel, inhumane, and shameful system. We won't stop until it no longer exists.
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BREAKING: We’re representing the NRA at the Supreme Court in their case against New York’s Department of Financial Services for abusing its regulatory power to violate the NRA’s First Amendment rights.
The government can’t blacklist an advocacy group because of its viewpoint.
We don’t support the NRA's mission or its viewpoints on gun rights, and we don’t agree with their goals, strategies, or tactics.
But we both know that government officials can't punish organizations because they disapprove of their views. nytimes.com/2023/12/09/us/…
If the Supreme Court doesn’t intervene, it will create a dangerous playbook for state regulatory agencies across the country to blacklist or punish any viewpoint-based organizations — from abortion rights groups to environmental groups or even ACLU affiliates.
BREAKING: We're suing Tennessee for their “aggravated prostitution” statute that targets people with HIV with harsh punishment and lifetime sex offender registration.
This law is unconstitutional and disproportionately affects Black and transgender women.
The law elevates engaging in sex work from a misdemeanor to a felony based on someone's HIV status – a protected disability.
People who are convicted must register as violent sex offenders for the rest of their lives, restricting their access to housing, employment, and social services.
Three years ago today, the murder of George Floyd in broad daylight by a Minneapolis police officer sparked the largest protests against police brutality in U.S. history.
George Floyd should still be alive.
George Floyd's murder demonstrated what we've known for too long: The policing institutions in our country are deeply entrenched in racism and violence.
We cannot allow it to continue.
Since June 2020, many cities and states have passed important but modest reforms, strengthening oversight of police departments and banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
BREAKING: We’re asking a federal court to block two provisions of an anti-voter law in Georgia that make it harder for people with disabilities to vote.
As it is now, the law makes it a felony for friends, neighbors, or staff who work in shelters or nursing homes to help people receive or return an absentee ballot, even if the person has a disability.
The law also requires counties to move ballot drop boxes indoors and limits their hours.
For people with mobility disabilities, this made turning in their ballot an arduous and painful ordeal — and for some it makes voting inaccessible altogether.
ICWA was passed in 1978 to protect Indigenous children from being removed from their families and communities, at a time when around 90% of Indigenous children were taken and raised outside of their tribes.
The Indian Child Welfare Act legally reaffirms tribal sovereignty, which is the right of tribes to make and be governed by their own laws.
It's embedded in hundreds of treaties, the U.S. Constitution, federal legislation, and Supreme Court decisions going back over 200 years.
Today, North Carolina, Nebraska, and South Carolina legislators are moving to advance state abortion bans that would restrict our access to life-saving care.