Recent sterilizations at immigration facility repeat violent history

Forced, coerced or illinformed sterilizations have a long and ugly history, and relationship with eugenics, in the United States. Vulnerable groups of people have been subjected to experimentation and medical procedures without their consent or knowledge, based on bigoted ideas about what a “desirable” population should look like.

When a nurse at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Georgia filed a complaint last month with the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that female detainees had been subjected to sterilization procedures without their full knowledge, that history came flooding back.

“Reproductive oppression is what reproductive justice is countering, so when we talk about reproductive justice and oppression, we are looking at the legacy in this country of 500-plus years from when colonization started happening,” said Laura Jimenez, executive director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.

Jimenez and CLRJ work to build Latina power and grow Latina leadership in the state, and achieve reproductive justice in California and across the country through policy advocacy, community organizing and communityinformed research. Their reproductive justice work is grounded in the belief that all people have the right to make decisions about their reproduction and access to reproductive health services and education.

She took some time to discuss the allegations at the ICE facility in Georgia, the history of forced sterilizations in the U.S., and where they fall within reproductive justice work. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q:

When the reports of forced sterilizations at the ICE detention facility in Georgia first came to light last month, what did this bring to mind for you, particularly as it relates to the work that you do with CLRJ?

A:

Honestly, what came to my mind and heart was just pure rage. CLRJ has been involved in this work, particularly around sterilization, since about 2015. We work very closely with the producer and director of “No Más Bebés,” which is the film about the sterilization of Mexican women at the L.A. County-usc Medical Center in the (1960s and) ’70s.

We’ve also worked with an organization which uncovered the prison sterilizations in California prisons in the early 2000s. So, what comes to mind is that, from the time of colonization, the rights of Black and indigenous people of color have been taken away in different forms. Genocide is a form, enslavement is a form, being separated from your family is a form; and what we see now is just the implementation of racist and eugenics practices by the current federal administration. It’s consistent behavior for them. It’s abhorrent and violent, but it’s consistent because they are still holding children in prisons away from their families, and we see that as absolutely a part of this eugenics practice.

Q:

Where do these latest forced sterilizations fall within the context of reproductive justice work?

A:

Institutions and governments are deciding who they see as fit to reproduce, and I think, in a larger context, who they see as fit to be a part of the citizenry of the country. In this particular context of the sterilizations in the ICE prison in Georgia, clearly, there was not a value placed on the lives of immigrant people there, so their sterilization was not seen as important. Again, they’re seen as disposable people who do not need to have that right, and I think that’s consistent with what we’ve seen here in California prisons. People who are incarcerated are just not thought of, in general, in systems and society at large. They are viewed as disposable, that human rights don’t necessarily apply once you have been sentenced for a crime.

Looking further back on the eugenics law in California from 1909 to 1979, and people who were sterilized in state institutions, there was definitely a judgment call being made that if there was a racial component, disability component, class component, that those people were also deemed unworthy or unfit or disposable. Their reproduction was not important.

Q:

In some of these conversations about the need for informed consent and a respect for bodily autonomy, the question has been raised about whether consent can truly be possible in places like prisons and immigration detention centers. Can you help us understand the argument being made, that true consent cannot happen under these circumstances, within a reproductive justice framework?

A:

In any type of prison — whether it’s a state, county, federal or immigration prison — the people who are incarcerated have none of the power and the people who are the security, the guards, the wardens, the judges, those are the people that have all the power. We’re talking about issues of safety. I would imagine it’s thinking “If I do what I’m being asked to do, will I be able to see my family?” How are those kinds of “privileges” being used? I think when you have people in a carceral setting, there is no true consent for these kinds of procedures.

This is why legislation like SB 1135 was written, to prevent further sterilizations in prisons, but we’re not completely sure that those have stopped. So, they’re issues that we have to continue shining a light on so that people, institutions, people in power realize that they’re going to be held accountable for these actions. We cannot determine that some people are deserving of human rights. There’s no deserving or not deserving. They are basic. They’re basic and they are attributed to all persons. Not all persons who are not incarcerated, or all persons who are White. All persons.