Condemning Unwanted, Unnecessary Medical Procedures on Individuals Without Their Full, Informed Consent
Floor Speech
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Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Nadler, I thank Ms. Jayapal for advancing this important resolution.
Last week I visited the Irwin Detention Center in Georgia along with a dozen of my colleagues.
I have visited some of these ICE detention centers before, and I have seen the horrible conditions that immigrants and refugees face across the country. We all remember the unspeakable stories about how children were separated from their mothers and fathers and how they cried for them in the middle of the night and how they were separated thousands of miles apart.
Mr. Speaker, I came to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young boy knowing this Nation was a beacon of hope and opportunity.
Never in my wildest dream did I ever think that I would be a Member of Congress. But I also never had the nightmare that I would be summoned, that I would be asked to investigate this horror story that has manifested itself at Irwin.
While there, I spoke to a handful of women whose stories made me so angry about this country, the country that I had grown to love, angry about how our laws have been twisted by a sick administration that treats innocent women so cruelly, women who want nothing more than the same freedom and opportunities that I once sought myself, women who put their lives on the line to get here.
I spoke to a woman from the DR who crossed el Canal de la Mona with 30 men and 3 other women, 7 days in the Caribbean Sea only to have, later on, her health and well-being put in great risk by the U.S. Government itself.
One of them told me that she was treated like an animal, that the appropriate instruments that needed to be used for her tests were not used, that there were invasive and aggressive tests. She told me that the doctor stuck his hand on her private parts, Mr. Speaker.
I am told one woman has been bleeding for more than 2 weeks.
Let's shut down this center. Let's arrest the doctors and anybody that was involved in perpetrating this crime.
Let's shut down Irwin right now, Mr. Speaker.
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