Earthjustice Statement on Reports of State Violence Involving Forced Sterilizations

We join calls for a thorough investigation by Congress and the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security

Contacts

Keith Rushing, Earthjustice, (757) 897-2147

Earthjustice is deeply troubled by the allegations that immigrant women have been facing unconscionable state violence in an ICE Detention Center in Georgia, including reports of forced sterilization.

If true, the claims compound a pattern of harm and animus toward immigrant communities by the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, including the forced separation of children from their families and the placement of immigrant children in unhealthy, unsanitary detention centers.

We must recognize that this nation has a brutal, shameful and racist history of forced sterilizations that disproportionately targeted people of color. These allegations follow myriad ongoing human rights abuses including the use of toxic disinfectants at the Adelanto Immigrant Detention Facility in California — disinfectants that have been linked through animal studies to infertility, birth defects, DNA damage, and cell death.

We join calls for a thorough investigation of the alleged abuse of immigrant women by Congress and the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

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Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.