The State Has No Right

The implication here are gut-wrenching:

Multiple women came forward to tell Project South about what they perceived to be the inordinate rate at which women in ICDC were subjected to hysterectomies – a surgical operation in which all or part of the uterus is removed. Additionally, many of the immigrant women who underwent the procedure were reportedly “confused” when asked to explain why they had the surgery, with one detainee likening their treatment to prisoners in concentration camps.

“Recently, a detained immigrant told Project South that she talked to five different women detained at ICDC between October and December 2019 who had a hysterectomy done,” the complaint stated. “When she talked to them about the surgery, the women ‘reacted confused when explaining why they had one done.’ The woman told Project South that it was as though the women were ‘trying to tell themselves it’s going to be OK.’”

“When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies,” the detainee said.

The treatment of human bodies in US immigration detention is historically bad (and was wretched under Obama as well, who gets no velvet glove treatment from me over his administration's negligence in health care, deportations, and placement of unaccompanied minors in the hands of unaccountable people) but this looks like more than mere gross criminal negligence. It looks like a plan to punish women for their fertility and prevent their making reproductive choices that might result in their children being a part of the United States citizenry.

It smells like ethnic cleansing. It is a human rights violation.

This is in line with other recent stories of ICE violations of human dignity: the continued separation of families, complicated by coronavirus.

Stories about US interest in migrant fertility aren't new. But this seems horrifying and deliberate beyond mere negligence, carelessness and cruelty. The bodies of these people were harmed and their choices taken away from them. It is both grotesque and yet not out of line with our darkest history.

UPDATE: It's also a reminder of one of the harshest things to consider about the Trump Administrations: The cruelty is the point. Even the most outlandish things, make perfect sense when you keep in mind that Trump is a sick little boy pulling the wings off of flies. Of course he invites his own followers to big old disease-spreading rallies. The death toll fascinates him, and the zeal.

Nothing good comes from misunderstanding this. Also, Caputo is a Renfield, but he isn't crazy. The invitation to insurrection in Trump's honor, following after Roger Stone, is the real message.