Status of Investigations into September 2020 Disclosures of Whistleblower Dawn Wooten and Immigrant Women Detained at Irwin County Detention Center

Letter to the Inspector General, Joseph V. Cuffarin (excerpt)

The Government Accountability Project and Project South, along with the 73 undersigned organizations, seek a status report on the ongoing investigations by your office into to the whistleblower disclosures and retaliation complaint of nurse Dawn Wooten, along with the complaints of multiple women detained in ICE custody at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC), submitted to your office in September 2020. This month marks two years since these women disclosed health and safety violations at ICDC, including failures to protect workers and immigrants from COVID-19 as well as nonconsensual invasive gynecological procedures performed on detained women.

The importance of the complaints Ms. Wooten and the women detained at ICDC made regarding conditions at the facility cannot be understated. Following their critical reports of severe abuses, DHS Secretary Mayorkas in May 2021 ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to sever its contract with ICDC, stating "We will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention." By the first anniversary of their disclosures, no noncitizens in ICE custody were detained at the facility.

Cc:
Representative Sylvia Garcia