David O’Brien, Editor

Yet another Immigrant Customs Enforcement (ICE) controversy has risen this week when a whistleblower revealed that numerous women in detainment centers had been sterilized without their consent. Numerous illegal citizens in these centers have been subjected to forced hysterectomies, a surgery that often results with infertility in women. Homeland Security and Congress have both launched investigations. The physician at the center of the allegations, Mahendra Amin, has still not been arrested but has been charged with similar crimes in the past. When previously charged for this offense, he merely had to pay a large fine and was allowed to resume in these practices. One woman under his “care” has admitted he accidentally removed a fallopian tube, leaving her infertile.  Numerous other attacks on ICE’s practices on the medical treatment have emerged nationwide, causing some to believe a covert mass eugenics movement is being conducted on detained immigrants.

This is far from the first health scandal with which ICE has been charged. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, ICE has refused to reduce overcrowding, has given little to no COVID-19 tests to detainees and has failed to provide soap, masks and hand sanitizer. The precautions ICE employees have taken are incredibly dangerous to the long-term health of detainees. Officers have been known to spray disinfectant on detainees that may result in: burns, rashes and respiratory infections, all the while doing so in overcrowded and poorly ventilated holding cells. 

President Donald Trump has also used the pandemic as a way to implement numerous new anti-immigration policies such as: blocking asylum-seekers from entering the United States and immediately deporting immigrants who cross the southern border without documents, a process that typically forces migrants into close contact with each other. While Republicans have defended the Trump Administration’s actions by reminding the public of President Barack Obama’s increase of detaining immigrants as well as the poor conditions of ICE facilities under Obama’s policies have been not even close in stature to Trump’s policies that have been implemented. 

The new sterilization controversy combines some of the most volatile conflicts between both parties: minority rights, a woman’s right to protecting her body, abuse of power and medical malpractice. Red or blue, one must agree that if these allegations are proven across the board, ICE officials must face harsh consequences for their actions.

obriend10@lasalle.edu