The 160-page file also alleges that women and other individuals detained at the facility were held in solitary confinement, experienced physical assault, and were deported – or almost deported – for talking about Amin, including one in one ongoing federal investigation. According to the document, an unnamed woman complained about him to Irwin employees back in 2018.
Amin has “flatly” denied allegations against him, lawyer Scott R. Grubman said in a statement to the Washington Post last month, adding, “Dr. Amin has had his patients, including those in ICE custody, always treated with the greatest care and respect. “
Neither Grubman nor LaSalle Corrections, the nonprofit that operates the Irwin facility, immediately responded to a request for comment early Tuesday. Several employees of the company or the ICE as well as Amin are named as respondents in the complaint.
ICE declined to comment on The Post on Wednesday due to pending legal disputes as well as the ongoing federal investigation. In previous statements, the agency has denied allegations of retaliation.
“Any implication that ICE is trying to hinder the investigation by removing respondents is completely wrong,” ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said last month.
Lawyers and attorneys said Monday’s filing highlighted the growing number of women making allegations against Amin. Some of the people on the file are still in the Irwin facility, some have been released in the United States, and others have been deported to Nigeria, Canada and Mexico, among others.
Azadeh Shahshahani, the director of law and advocacy at Project South, one of several groups working on the case, said in an interview with The Post that the statements suggest an institutional pattern of neglect.
“ICE knew about medical abuse and did nothing,” she said. “In the context in which they are now trying to get revenge on people who speak up and try to clear the evidence, that is really pretty outrageous.”
However, charges that an inmate identified as “Jane Doe # 35” repeatedly raised concerns about Amin with the Irwin warden and an ICE officer in the latter half of 2018 were brought up for treatment.
Irwin became the subject of national attention in September after a whistleblower to a nurse at the facility, Dawn Wooten, alleged that a doctor later identified as Amin had subjected immigrant inmates to undesirable hysterectomies.
Their claims of widespread unwanted sterilization were quickly verified. The hospital where Amin practiced said only two women in ICE detention had been referred for hysterectomies.
However, the allegations against Amin have received significant attention from lawmakers, news organizations and human rights groups.
In October, an independent team of medical experts, including nine board certified obstetricians, reviewed more than 3,200 pages of medical records from 19 women in Irwin who allegedly had been mistreated. They found that it was a worrying pattern of inadequate care, including incorrect diagnoses and failure to obtain informed consent for surgery and other procedures.
After a group of federal agencies opened an investigation into the matter, lawsuits were filed last month to stop the deportation of four potential witnesses, all of whom said they were nearly removed from the United States. The Trump administration agreed to suspend the deportations of these women and those with similar allegations, despite last week urging the court to withdraw from the deal.
A former Irwin inmate, Jaromy Floriano Navarro, who was deported to Mexico the day after Wooten’s report was published, hopes President-elect Joe Biden and his administration will do more to address the alleged abuse they and other women have suffered .
“The takeaway I want is justice,” she said in an interview with The Post. “So that they bring us back – those of us who were deported because of what they said – and so that this does not happen again in any immigration office.”
After living in the United States for the past two decades, she added, “I’m American and my government has treated me like I wasn’t from the United States.”
Maria Sacchetti contributed to this report.
