0:00

After several requests, I finally

0:04

got an appointment to see a doctor. When

0:06

the day came, they

0:09

handcuffed me. They put a chainer

0:11

on my waist all the way down to my ankles.

0:15

He doesn't acknowledge me. He just

0:17

sits in front of me and starts s prepping for the

0:19

procedure, which he does not explain. So

0:26

that's a woman named Karina Cisnero

0:28

s Preciado who's testifying before

0:30

Congress. Karina is an

0:32

undocumented immigrant who was being held

0:34

at a detention center in Irwin County,

0:36

Georgia. While she was held there in

0:39

twenty twenty, the facilities doctor

0:41

subjected her to invasive reproductive

0:43

procedures without her consent. And

0:46

it turns out Karina wasn't alone.

0:49

He was doing the same thing to a lot

0:51

of other women. I

0:54

thank god that the news came

0:56

out because he didn't

0:58

get to do anything else to me. That

1:06

news came out because of a whistleblower

1:08

who was working at this detention center at

1:11

the same time, a licensed practical

1:13

nurse named Dawn Wootton. When

1:16

don learned what was happening, she raised

1:18

hell and her life has

1:20

been hell ever since. This

1:25

is the whistleblowers. On

1:28

this show, we're going deep into the heart of

1:30

power to meet people who spoke out

1:32

about wrongdoing from inside the Trump

1:34

administration. Some were

1:37

in the President's inner circle, others

1:39

were on the front lines of top agencies.

1:43

So far in this series, we've heard stories

1:45

from people like Andy McCabe,

1:47

alex Vinman, Olivia Troy,

1:50

people who spent their careers working in Washington,

1:53

DC. But Don Wootton, She's

1:55

a nurse doing the job that she'd

1:57

trained for, pretty far from the center

2:00

of political power, and yet

2:02

by becoming a whistleblower, Dawn

2:04

created a new type of power. Her

2:07

voice ended up reverberating all

2:09

the way from a corrupt detention center in rural

2:11

Georgia to the US capital itself.

2:15

In doing so, she found herself

2:17

caught in a crossfire she never

2:19

expected Episode

2:25

six, Do No Harm.

2:34

Before she was a whistleblower, Don Wootton

2:36

was first and foremost a nurse. Caregiving

2:39

was a role she felt called to from a young

2:41

age. I wanted to care

2:43

for other people. I had a grandma

2:46

she raised me from a child, and

2:48

she became sick one day

2:51

and I had to rush her to the

2:53

nearest hospital in rural Georgia,

2:56

where Dawn grew up. The nearest hospital

2:58

is at least a thirty five I've been at to drive away

3:01

her mouth began to shift to the left side

3:03

of her face. Now that we know that

3:05

there's the cva are stroke, but at the time I

3:07

couldn't explain to her what it was, and she only had a

3:09

third grade education. Not being

3:11

able to explain to her and have the answers

3:13

for her that I needed, I immediately

3:16

knew that I wanted to

3:18

become a nurse. The time she was in

3:20

the hospital, I asked questions with the physicians

3:22

and doctors, and then I progress into

3:25

nursing, which I loved

3:27

dearly. Dawn's first job

3:29

at a nursing school is at a corrections

3:31

facility. The next an immigration

3:34

detention center in Osilla County,

3:36

Georgia. The detention center is

3:38

a private prison overseen by ICE,

3:41

the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division

3:43

that falls under the Department of Homeland Security.

3:46

Working within the ICE system across

3:48

different centers, Dawn quickly learns

3:51

that the jails which house these detainees

3:53

view them as part of the business. The

3:56

facilities get paid for every inmate,

3:58

so the more people in jail, the more government

4:00

funding a facility can receive, but

4:03

Dawn doesn't see the immigrants that she works with

4:05

as numbers on a bottom line. They're

4:08

her patients. The more I worked

4:10

in detention, and the more I begin

4:12

to hear the stories of others from a

4:15

incarcerated side, it

4:17

made it just that much more interesting,

4:20

And I was like pulled or

4:23

I gravitated to wanting

4:25

to know why you're here and

4:28

what transpired in what's

4:30

going on. It brought about that

4:33

in a nurturer that I was

4:35

born with, So I became

4:38

kind of like what you would call a den

4:40

mother inside of this den it and

4:42

the stories Dawn hears from her patients give

4:44

her a clear sense of how hard this is for them

4:47

and how unjust their treatment within the immigration

4:50

system can often be. You

4:52

would think that the way that they were treated on the

4:54

inside of this facility that I

4:56

worked at, that they were mass murderers.

4:59

A lot of these women were separated from their

5:01

children. A lot of these guys

5:04

that came in had minor traffic

5:06

citations. They would oftentime be

5:08

told they didn't belong here and making

5:10

them feel like that they

5:13

had committed the worst crime ever by

5:15

coming to the United States having grown

5:17

up as a black woman in Georgia, Dahn

5:19

says that she sees something she's all

5:22

too familiar with. I live here in the Deep

5:24

South. They still believe in racism

5:26

here. So inside of the ICE facilities

5:29

where now gravitated decades

5:31

from slavery, changing to where

5:33

nice migrants, immigrants now

5:36

they have reversed roles from the

5:38

African American community. Now

5:40

we're gonna persecute immigration, immigrant

5:42

workers. And when Trump takes

5:44

office, Don realizes that the

5:46

President's sensational rhetoric about

5:49

immigration finds a welcome audience

5:51

among the many staffers working

5:53

for these ICE prisons. I feel

5:56

as though Trump stirred up a lot of

5:58

the systemic racism. He awokea

6:00

era that we were beginning

6:03

to not really die down,

6:05

but it was more hidden and it

6:08

was more suffocated. These

6:10

are people, these

6:12

are animals, and we're taking him out

6:14

of the country at a level and at a rate that's

6:16

never happened before. That's

6:19

President Trump speaking at a White House

6:21

briefing on sanctuary cities. And

6:24

this is one of his gentler comments about

6:27

America's undocumented immigrants. During

6:29

the campaign, he'd said, quote,

6:32

they're bringing drugs, they're bringing

6:34

crime, their rapists, some

6:37

I assume are good people. It

6:39

was like he took the plastic bag

6:42

off of the head of racism

6:44

and allowed it to breathe again

6:47

inside of these detention centers.

6:51

Despite the political climate outside,

6:53

Dawn continues to build strong relationships

6:56

with the detainees inside the prison

6:58

walls, asking questions and

7:00

showing compassion. It built

7:02

up a relationship with the

7:05

detention immigrants that were in the

7:07

detention center to trust that I

7:09

was going to make sure that everything for them was

7:11

okay. It's

7:15

March twenty twenty. You remember,

7:18

COVID is starting to shut down the country. Nobody

7:20

knows what to do, how to stay safe,

7:23

or how bad it's going to get. And

7:25

like a lot of people we started to call essential

7:28

workers, Dawn doesn't have the option

7:30

to go into lockdown or stay home. She

7:32

has patience to see. And Dawn's

7:34

patients are already facing the devastating

7:37

reality of deportation. Now

7:40

everyone is also facing this scary,

7:43

unknown thing, the pandemic.

7:46

I'm sick. I've got a call I can't

7:48

get rid of. I've been coughing for a while, I've got a

7:50

fever, I've got a headache. Did

7:52

not know this was COVID at the time,

7:55

but I work sick not thinking

7:57

about it twice. There's still a lot of confusion

8:00

about safety protocols, but by early

8:02

April, the CDC has at least advised

8:05

that masks can slow the spread of COVID,

8:07

and yet the President doesn't

8:10

exactly lead. By example, the

8:12

CDC is advising the use of non

8:15

medical cloth face covering, but

8:18

this is voluntary. I

8:20

don't think I'm going to be doing it. I'm feeling

8:23

good. I don't know. Somehow I

8:25

don't see it for myself. Something

8:33

else that President Trump doesn't see for

8:35

himself is a wicked case of COVID

8:38

that he gets about six months later, and

8:40

it nearly kills him. So, yes,

8:42

there are mixed messages coming out of Washington,

8:45

but there's enough information out there for Dawn to

8:47

see that the protocols within the ice

8:49

center fall well short of what's

8:51

needed to keep both her staff and her

8:53

patients safe. More

8:56

of my employees is seek we're not wearing

8:59

masks because we were told that we

9:01

didn't need to wear a mask at this time. The detainees

9:03

inside the facility is not wearing masks. The

9:05

transport guys and officers are going out

9:07

picking up the detainees and bringing in more

9:10

immigrants into the facility that are sick.

9:12

So we were sending people to the hospital. COVID

9:16

Transport guy became sick, tested

9:18

positive for COVID. COVID

9:21

transport guy dies with

9:24

COVID. And even

9:26

if everyone agreed on the safety

9:28

protocols, there just aren't enough masks

9:30

to go around the detainees. They

9:33

start tearing up jumpsuits, towels,

9:35

making masks, socks, making

9:37

masks to cover their face. At

9:39

this point, I go inside of

9:41

the facility and if I'm not mistaken,

9:43

there are forty five positive cases inside

9:46

of this facility at this time. About

9:48

three weeks into the pandemic. In mid April,

9:51

some of the women being detained at the Irwin Center

9:54

make a YouTube video pleading

9:56

to be released because conditions are

9:58

so dangerous. Power.

10:14

She is saying, quote, we need

10:16

protection. Please. All we ask

10:18

is that people listen to their conscience and

10:20

their hearts. There are so many mothers

10:23

here who are suffering the humiliations.

10:25

My god, why can't Ice understand?

10:28

Unquote? The guards

10:30

are pissed. After the video is

10:33

posted, they put the women on lockdown,

10:35

some end up in solitary confinement. Then

10:39

Don hears that one of the other nurses

10:41

has COVID. She's sick. I remember

10:44

we celebrated her birthday in May.

10:46

She's sick. Long story sharp, she

10:49

dies COVID positives.

10:51

The next thing that we hear is

10:53

that the person that takes her place is saying

10:55

she got it from a family gathering. But

10:58

this story that the nurse had contracted

11:01

at a family gathering, not at work. Dawn

11:04

knows that's not true, and for her,

11:06

this sparks the first flicker of suspicion.

11:09

Why is management trying to downplay the

11:11

thread of this virus spreading at the

11:13

center. Then she sees

11:15

something that really shocks her.

11:19

COVID begin to spread like wildfire.

11:21

The nurses that works with me is

11:23

shredding the sick. Calls the medical

11:26

documentation facts from the hospital.

11:28

I have no better than the white child,

11:31

sins to say, hey, what the hell is going on

11:33

in here? The Irwin

11:35

County Detention Center disputes

11:38

Don's allegations. Don

11:40

immediately starts raising concerns about

11:42

what she's witnessed internally with colleagues

11:45

and with her supervisors, and she's

11:47

told don't touch that, leave

11:49

that alone. And the reason why

11:51

it was to be covered up because we

11:54

would have to be isolated

11:56

at this time. If

11:58

COVID was in your facility, you live

12:01

there, you slept there, you ate

12:03

there, You were in that community

12:05

until it was marginalized

12:08

or control. Nobody wanted to be quarantine.

12:10

None of the administration up front

12:13

was agreeing to do that. Oh

12:16

hecknah, I'm going home. Our facility

12:18

would have had to have been locked down

12:21

and could not receive any more

12:23

immigrants because we were a contaminated

12:26

whole place now, which would stop

12:29

the revenue from entering the place.

12:32

So basically, if there's no documentation

12:35

of the COVID cases, Ice can

12:37

keep bussing more immigrants into the facility.

12:40

This is just good for business. They

12:42

need to keep the detainees flowing in

12:44

order to keep the money flowing. It's

12:47

a cruel and cynical calculation, and

12:50

Dawn starts to learn there are other

12:52

calculations that the ICE prison

12:54

is making, calculations

12:56

that put profit over people's lives.

12:59

The sloppy COVID protocols, the retaliation,

13:02

the mistreatment, all of this is

13:05

just the tip of the iceberg. Compared

13:07

to what Dawn learns next. As

13:24

Dawn is being told by her bosses to stop

13:26

asking so many questions about masks

13:28

and quarantines, she's approached

13:30

by some of the center's female detainees.

13:34

They tell her there's this doctor for the facility

13:36

under contract with ICE. They say

13:38

this doctor has been giving women

13:41

gyneological procedures for reasons

13:43

they don't understand and that they didn't

13:46

consent to. His name

13:48

is doctor Mahendra Amine. The

13:51

women ask Dawn to look in their medical

13:53

files so she can explain what

13:55

procedures were performed on them,

13:57

and Dawn is shocked to see complex

14:00

surgeries like hysterectomies in

14:03

their records. I go to demit cart one

14:05

day and I take back, you had a hysterectomy,

14:07

you had tubes remove, you had ovaries

14:10

remove. Doctor Tammy Rowan,

14:13

the leading obstetrician and gynecologist

14:15

at uc San Francisco, offers

14:17

context and what these types of surgeries

14:20

entailed. A hysterectomy specifically,

14:22

is just the uterus. If you remove the uterus,

14:24

you have taken away someone's ability to carry

14:27

a pregnance. If you take out their

14:29

tubes, that takes away their ability

14:32

to have a spontaneous pregnancy,

14:34

but if they wanted to be pregnant

14:36

in the future, they actually could do something like

14:38

an invitro fertilization and then

14:41

implant that pregnancy into their uterus.

14:43

If you remove someone's ovaries, you're

14:45

taking away their ability in

14:48

any capacity to ever have a biological

14:50

child ever. In other words,

14:53

these are invasive, big decision

14:55

procedures, life changing operations

14:58

like sterilization. And these

15:00

women are telling Dawn not only did

15:02

they not give their consent, but in many cases

15:05

they didn't even know the procedure was

15:07

being performed in the first place, or

15:09

if they had agreed to the procedure, it

15:12

was because the doctor told them it

15:14

was for something else. A

15:16

lot of these women were telling me that they

15:19

had really huge cists

15:21

and they had to have them taken out for

15:24

a risk of cancer. I got a

15:26

lot of them telling me that they

15:28

were told that it could be cancer.

15:30

They needed this surgery for cancer.

15:33

I had one girl was twenty three and she was scared

15:35

to death. She had a total history. Me had twenty

15:37

three and she came into the cit

15:39

call office. I'll never forget I was a sit call

15:41

nurse, had my own office and I pulled the door

15:44

and she was crying profusely and

15:46

she was like, my husband's gonna leave me. I

15:48

was like why. She was like, cause I can't have any more children.

15:53

Sure enough, I opened a chart. She

15:55

has a full history to me, and I'm

15:57

like, well, you don't remember, she said,

15:59

I didn't sign nothing for it.

16:02

It's hard to overstate what's happening here.

16:05

A woman goes to the doctor and

16:07

is told she has a cancerous

16:09

cist. She agrees to a procedure

16:11

to remove it, but instead, Dawn

16:14

says, she receives a hysterectomy,

16:17

and now we'll never be able to bear

16:19

children. Across the

16:21

board, doctor Amane is relying

16:23

on procedures that are more aggressive

16:25

than the usual go to treatments. At

16:28

least forty of the cases for which he performed

16:30

invasive surgery could have been handled

16:33

with simple hormonal therapy.

16:35

Doctor Rowan explains how doctor

16:37

Amine performs surgeries that were

16:40

often just unnecessary

16:42

in general for cists. You can just remove

16:44

a cyst unless you think it's cancer. You can

16:46

just remove a cyst without removing the ovaries.

16:49

So that's just an extra layer of

16:51

inappropriate medical care

16:54

that this person was providing, and that's the baby

16:56

tip of iceberg for something like

16:59

that. This still doesn't

17:01

hit you until others start

17:03

poking at the same bear and

17:06

they're asking the same questions and

17:08

they're all having the same issues.

17:11

They're comparing their diagnosis

17:13

together. She's got a large

17:15

fibroids sets. She's got a large fibroids

17:18

sets. She's being put on birth control

17:20

pills for the fibroids sets. The next

17:22

time she goes, she's being told that she has to

17:24

have surgery. The next time she goes, she's

17:26

actually having the surgery. Donna

17:32

is a medical professional, and she knows

17:34

what she's seen is not normal. Doctor

17:37

Rowan, Again, as somebody

17:39

who operates in an insurance

17:42

based system, I have to

17:44

document very clearly why

17:48

and how I'm planning to do a surgery,

17:50

and so I frequently will be

17:52

told by insurance that Nope, this, especially

17:55

for a hysterectomy, this is not indicated.

17:58

You haven't done enough other things.

18:00

I'm very thoughtful and thorough.

18:03

So one of the most striking things about

18:05

this is is there any oversight

18:07

in this person's ability to perform surgery?

18:10

There's clearly no oversight.

18:13

If what Dawn is saying is true. Now,

18:17

to be clear, hysterectomies are common,

18:19

many women get them, but given

18:21

what's at stake, consent is crucial,

18:24

especially given the risks Doctor

18:27

Rowan, again, obviously,

18:30

anything that's done to your body,

18:32

you should be aware of what we call it. We

18:34

have three components to it. So what are

18:36

the risks, what are the benefits, and what

18:38

are the alternatives? And so

18:40

those are the three components. And it's crucial

18:43

before anybody can make a decision

18:45

about anything that's done to them, that they understand

18:48

those three criteria. The

18:51

women who came to Dawn didn't understand

18:54

any of those criteria.

18:56

Now let's talk big picture for a

18:58

second. There's an uncomfortable

19:01

truth about these procedures. Given

19:03

the circumstances for the doctor

19:05

performing it, there's a clear financial

19:07

incentive they can Bill Moore,

19:10

and without oversight, no one

19:12

can say it was unnecessary. This

19:14

is bad. But what's worse is

19:17

that Ice could have seen this coming, could

19:19

have or should have prevented it. And

19:22

that's because doctor Amine had

19:24

a history. In twenty thirteen,

19:27

the Department of Justice and the State of

19:29

Georgia filed a lawsuit against

19:31

him at Erwin County Hospital over

19:34

allegations of medicaid fraud and

19:37

performing unnecessary gyneological

19:39

procedures. But seven years

19:41

later, ICE has him under contract

19:43

again to work with the women at the

19:45

center. I talked to Dana

19:48

Gould, Dawn's lawyer and an attorney

19:50

with the Government Accountability Project who

19:52

specializes in immigration. She

19:55

says, the US immigration system

19:57

is riddled with these types of cases. It's

20:00

just known that these facilities that

20:02

there's week oversight, repeat

20:05

offenses, and no contract

20:07

consequences between the perverse

20:09

incentives for money, the

20:11

perverse incentives for not reporting

20:14

compliance, and how there's basically

20:16

a pass to not be in compliance

20:18

because it's expensive. It's expensive to

20:21

keep being safe. All these things cost

20:23

time and money, so cost

20:26

savings comes at the expense of

20:29

the immigrants and attention. The oversight

20:31

Dana is talking about is whether ICE is making

20:33

sure everything is operating appropriately

20:36

in these privately run prisons. The

20:38

agency is outsourcing to contractors

20:41

to run detention operations, but

20:43

it still has an obligation to make sure they

20:45

are up to standards, including, for

20:47

instance, making sure doctors aren't

20:50

going rogue. We're delegating,

20:52

like a really important government function

20:54

to private contractors without

20:56

adequate vetting and without adequate oversight.

20:59

There have been problems with oversight at detention

21:01

centers for a long time, over several

21:04

administrations, from President Bush

21:06

to Obama and finally to Trump,

21:09

but nothing quite like this. I

21:11

worked at the Department of Homeland Security during

21:13

the Trump administration. I had left

21:16

by the time this case happened in Georgia,

21:18

but I remember Congress starting to raise

21:20

questions about the conditions at facilities

21:22

like this early on, and

21:25

the growing frustration that the problems

21:27

weren't getting fixed fast enough. Too

21:30

often abuses got swept under the rug

21:32

in the Trump years, in part because

21:34

the president's immigration crackdown caused

21:37

these centers to become hugely overcrowded.

21:40

DHS officials warned about it, but

21:43

the White House went forward anyway.

21:47

Back at the Irwin Center in that spring

21:49

of twenty twenty, Dawn is seen exactly

21:52

this play out. Lack of vetting,

21:55

check just look at doctor Aman's

21:57

background, lack of oversight.

22:00

Check what

22:03

they do in the facility that

22:05

I worked in. They fill out

22:07

a request, they send it up to ICE

22:10

saying that this needs to be done, and Ice

22:12

is the one that approves it. In

22:14

this case, it was female reproductive

22:17

procedures that they sent them up. If

22:19

I could catch it at the lower level that I

22:22

was at not looking for it,

22:24

then I'm gonna say there was poor oversight

22:27

on ICE's behalf

22:30

of whoever was handling these, because

22:33

it should have set up a red flag

22:35

that every week I'm getting

22:38

so many requests to be sent out

22:41

for female surgical

22:44

implementations. In

22:46

other words, it was piss

22:48

poor managed. Once Dune

22:50

starts putting the pieces of this awful puzzle

22:52

together, she again wastes no

22:55

time in raising her concerns.

22:57

She marches over to the head of the nursing office

23:00

looking for answers. I

23:03

asked a coworker that I sat

23:05

side by side with, and I was like, I just

23:07

came from down line, And one

23:09

of the detained women was like, what

23:11

is he the uterus collector? I was like, what is going

23:14

on? She puts her hand on top of my hand

23:16

and say, wooting, you want to leave that alone.

23:19

My supervisor at the time rolls

23:22

out of the office cause we're in one space

23:24

together. So she rolls out of a little room, leans

23:27

back in her chair non chalantley says,

23:29

girl, he getting that money

23:32

laughs and rolls back to her desk.

23:36

Why is no one else alarmed by

23:38

reports about a doctor whose nickname

23:41

is literally the uterus

23:43

collector? Safe to say?

23:45

When she hears that Wooten

23:47

does not leave this alone. From

24:01

April twenty twenty through that summer, Dawn

24:03

continues to try and push her supervisor's

24:06

for answers. I get up every morning

24:08

five o'clock shilling to work, to

24:11

do what I'm supposed to do, and I'm a mandated reporter.

24:14

I'm a nurse. I'm mandated to report those things

24:16

that are not I didn't sign on just for

24:18

a paycheck. I signed on to care about people,

24:20

and this is the area that I

24:23

chose to care about people in. I'm

24:26

asking. I'm told leave this alone,

24:28

leave that alone. Her bosses

24:31

start trying to find ways to say Dawn is

24:33

not a good employee, pointing to a single

24:35

day she didn't show up for work as an

24:37

example of her unreliability. But

24:40

it was an approved sick day.

24:42

Dawn, diligent as she is, of

24:44

course, had documented why she had to take

24:46

the day, providing a dated doctor's

24:49

note showing that she'd been sick. But

24:51

they're trying to find any reason to demote

24:53

her and to shut

24:55

her up and being inquisitive.

24:58

I find myself no from

25:01

a write up to where I was a no call, no show.

25:04

I had a doctor's excuse they didn't even put

25:06

in the file. So I'm like, okay, so

25:08

I gotta be on to something because now

25:10

they're trying to constructively get

25:12

rid of me by write up.

25:15

This goes on for months. The

25:17

facility starts freezing her out,

25:19

even though Dawn sees that they are urgently

25:22

trying to fill nursing jobs at the prison,

25:25

until one day she's asked to

25:27

go from a full time nursing position at the

25:29

center to an on call role.

25:33

It's a clear message. When I talked

25:35

to the warden, it was like it was almost

25:37

scripted and rehearsed. He spends

25:39

his chair around after I ask him what is going

25:41

on here? I've never been written up, I've

25:44

never been a problem. You are always glad

25:46

to see me coming. You know, I'll do my job and

25:48

sear. He told me you would call me when he needed

25:50

me, or, as Dana Gould explains it,

25:52

moved from a full time position nursing position

25:55

to an on call position and then never

25:57

called again. I was told in other words,

26:00

you take your woman questioning

26:02

black self and get it on up out

26:04

of my facility because you're trouble. So that's

26:07

what it was. They dismissed me. When

26:09

I left, traveling home. I

26:11

remember talking to God and I was like, okay,

26:14

what do I have to do? And I'm crying. I'm like, I

26:16

don't have a job, Like what is going on? It

26:19

was mortified because

26:21

I'm a single parent. This is how I feed

26:23

my kids. Dawn's

26:26

not technically fired, she's

26:29

benched, put in professional

26:31

purgatory, and there's no clear direction

26:34

about what she should do next. So

26:36

she's scared, but she knows one

26:38

thing. She has to expose

26:41

what's going on at the detention center.

26:43

Thoughts, racing, hearts, racing, emotions

26:45

are all over the place. Now, I'm worried

26:48

about the treatment of these people inside the facility.

26:50

So she starts looking for someone to help her, and

26:53

she meets Dana. I remember the first time

26:55

hearing her talk, and I was

26:57

just like, she's a force of nature. She's

27:00

just a force of nature. Despite

27:04

the fears she feels about coming forward

27:06

publicly, Dawn decides to file

27:08

an official whistleblower complaint through

27:11

an organization called Projects South. Meanwhile,

27:14

Dana and her team, whose law firm

27:16

helps protect whistleblowers, work

27:18

on Dawn's retaliation complaint related

27:21

to her unlawful dismissal. Dawn

27:24

decides to put her name on those complaints,

27:27

a brave move. I was told

27:29

that my disclosures might not be as effective

27:31

if I was anonymous as it would

27:34

be public. Sometimes you don't need

27:36

to think things through. Sometimes you need

27:38

to be put in that position to where

27:40

your heart pressed, deliver it and

27:42

then we'll deal with the repercussions

27:45

behind it. And she also doesn't

27:47

shy away from appearing publicly, first,

27:50

speaking at an immigration rights rally

27:52

in Atlanta. I remember that

27:54

my two kids at the time was seventeen

27:57

and fifteen. They would not let me go by myself because

27:59

they afraid that something's gonna happen. I

28:01

was pissed, this is not right.

28:04

Why did this keep happening? So

28:06

it wasn't hard to go and have this conversation

28:08

because their adrenaline is still pumping. There

28:11

needs to be attention brought to

28:13

ic DC. The management

28:16

needs to be changed. As

28:19

a nurse, I took an oath said

28:21

my life when I stepped in no longer

28:23

was my life. It became the lives of others.

28:27

And at the rally, she talks to the media

28:29

anything to draw attention to this issue,

28:32

and as you've heard, Donna's pretty

28:34

outspoken, so she doesn't hold back. People

28:37

have warned her that this is risky for her

28:40

personally, but she still doesn't back

28:42

down. That's when

28:44

the hate really starts. I

28:47

remember coming back from Atlanta after doing

28:49

this and I was like, what did I just do?

28:53

I got intel. I don't know how true it was that

28:55

somebody said they were gonna lynch me. I live

28:57

in the South, so I'm getting

28:59

all of this. It's crazy mahammock

29:02

stuff coming to me. Dawn realizes

29:04

that many of the threats are coming

29:06

from her old co workers at the Irwin

29:09

Center. The threats I got

29:11

here were like the people that worked

29:13

to the facility, they were gonna jump on me, oh

29:15

when they saw me downtown, you know, and going down

29:17

to the grocery store here. You

29:19

know, I have people I bet you wish you had to keep your mouth

29:21

clothes. You talk

29:24

too damn much. And I canna

29:26

understand them being angry about their job

29:28

because that was their livelihood.

29:30

But at this point, I'm like, you need to be angry with the person

29:32

that was committing the crime, not me. The

29:36

truth is a lot of these ice facilities

29:38

are the big employer in the area.

29:41

They're a big part of the local economy. People

29:44

rely on them. Here's Dana

29:46

Gould. It's like a high paying job

29:49

for workers in the community. It's a

29:51

concentration of jobs and poor locations

29:54

typically where these facilities are, so

29:56

there's an incentive to stay

29:58

quiet in the face of problems

30:00

that you might see because the job is

30:03

valuable to workers. The death

30:05

threats keep coming, but Dawn

30:07

continues to tell her story on

30:09

new shows and to reporters

30:11

until her advocacy team becomes

30:14

genuinely worried for her

30:16

and her family in Atlanta.

30:18

They help relocate them to safety in

30:21

several undisclosed locations.

30:23

Then they supply a bodyguard. Her

30:27

family is in and out of random hotels

30:29

until they decide it's finally

30:31

safe to go home. We were in the hotel

30:34

for a couple of months trying to find

30:36

for ourselves, and I had a child that has a developmental

30:38

disability, and then my daughter

30:41

is at the same time, she's a

30:43

teenager in her first relationship,

30:45

and she snatched away from society itself.

30:48

We all slept in one bed at one time because

30:50

it was so depressing. It was Helen Wheels,

30:52

I hated it. While Dawn is fearing

30:55

for her life on the receiving end of

30:57

a very angry community, her makes

31:00

its way to the Office of the Inspector

31:02

General at DHS and

31:04

then onto Congress, where

31:07

it explodes, our

31:09

findings are deeply disturbing.

31:14

It's November twenty twenty two. Senator

31:17

John Assoff of Georgia is opening

31:19

a hearing of the Senate's Committee on Homeland

31:21

Security to review the findings

31:24

of an eighteen month investigation into

31:26

the treatment of women in immigration

31:28

detention. It is the bipartisan

31:31

finding of the subcommittee that

31:33

female detainees in Georgia were

31:36

subjected by a DHS contracted

31:38

doctor to excessive,

31:41

invasive and often unnecessary

31:44

gynecological surgeries and procedures,

31:47

with repeated failures to obtain informed

31:49

medical consent. The complaint

31:52

from Dawn that goes in front of Congress

31:54

detailed everything she had been seen,

31:57

the sloppy COVID protocols that were

31:59

putting lives in danger, the cover

32:01

up of test results, the alarming

32:03

number of invasive gyneological surgeries,

32:06

the lack of consent, and the

32:08

retaliation against the women who spoke

32:11

out. The Senate investigation

32:13

confirms the women at Irwin faced

32:16

egregious medical mistreatment. This

32:18

is an extraordinarily disturbing finding

32:21

and in my view, represents a catastrophic

32:24

failure by the federal government

32:26

to respect basic human rights. Among

32:29

the serious abuses this subcommittee

32:31

has investigated during the last two years,

32:35

subjecting female detainees to

32:37

non consensual and unnecessary

32:39

gynecological surgeries is

32:42

one of the most nightmarish and disgraceful.

32:46

That investigation had involved four hundred

32:48

and fifty thousand pages of records

32:51

and seventy witnesses, which

32:53

brings us back to the woman we met at the

32:55

beginning of this episode. My

32:57

name is Kernasrosprisio. I

33:00

was brought to the United States when I was eight years

33:02

old. I am no twenty three

33:05

year old mother up two. When

33:07

my daughter was four months old, I called

33:09

the police to stop ongoing abuse from

33:11

her father. This led to me being

33:14

arrested, and even though the

33:16

charges were dropped, I still ended up at ICDC

33:20

for almost seven months, away from my daughter,

33:22

away from my family ic

33:25

DC, which is the ice detention

33:27

facility in Georgia. At

33:30

ICDC, I became seven

33:33

two one seven six instead

33:35

of Karna. At

33:38

CDC, I

33:41

went through hell. Karina

33:46

Preciado's experience with doctor Amine

33:49

didn't involve a hysterectomy. For

33:51

her, it was a shot of birth control, which

33:53

he administered without her consent. If

33:56

he had asked her, he would have known she had

33:58

a family history of serious

34:00

health complications from taking birth control.

34:03

Dawn had not named doctor Amine and her

34:06

complaint only referring to him

34:08

as quote the doctor, So

34:10

the Senate hearing is an opportunity for

34:12

the women of ICDC to

34:14

publicly condemn him.

34:17

I had suffered

34:20

from sexual assault before as

34:22

a child. The experience

34:24

with doctor I mean made me feel the same thing I

34:26

felt. It made me feel like I had an no control

34:29

for my body. I had no say, no vote,

34:31

no nothing. As the nurse had told me, I

34:34

was getting a papsmir. I didn't

34:36

ask any questions. I thought I couldn't. Fifty

34:39

seven women who were victims of the unwanted

34:42

medical procedures came forward

34:44

after Dawn's complaint became public,

34:47

and a number of those women came together to

34:49

file a class action lawsuit over

34:51

the medical mistreatment that they endured. That

34:54

lawsuit is still pending. According

34:58

to Dawn, after her port came

35:00

out, many of the women who came forward

35:02

faced retaliation. Some

35:05

were immediately deported, but in

35:07

one case, a woman who was on board

35:09

a plane about to be deported was

35:12

abruptly pulled off and returned

35:14

to the center. Let's

35:16

say that this woman paid a price for

35:18

returning back to the facility because

35:21

they talked about how she was treated, you know, water

35:24

off, no food, no commissary,

35:26

no visitation. They were like

35:30

hustling her not to speak. But

35:36

the brave actions of Dawn and

35:38

the women at the center are not in vain.

35:41

The complaint leads to bipartisan condemnation,

35:44

one of the only times during and after

35:47

the Trump administration that Democrats

35:49

and Republicans have been united

35:51

in an opinion that this

35:54

was wrong and there are real

35:56

consequences for the facility. Dana

35:59

Gould that

36:01

facility. The ice contract was ordered

36:04

to be ended. There are no immigrants

36:06

at the Rowancounted Attention Center anymore.

36:09

Within a year. They also stop

36:11

affiliating with the doctor. He can't

36:13

he wasn't practicing there. These women were

36:15

able to file this lawsuit

36:18

concerning the things that they were done, so they were able to

36:20

do this jointly and that was wonderful.

36:27

But at the end of the day, don still

36:29

misses the women she cared for. I

36:31

missed my birds. To them, I was

36:34

the eagle and they were my eaglets. You could come into

36:36

my sit call office and

36:38

I would always have inspirational music.

36:40

Because I was raised in the church,

36:42

I would always have that encouragement. If you wanted

36:45

prayer, we would pray. I would

36:47

love to know where they are and how

36:49

they're doing, and what

36:51

is transpiring with them, and how

36:54

were they emotionally even

36:56

through the process. It's emotional for

36:58

me, so I can only imagine me is

37:00

talking about it. Daunt

37:05

did everything that you'd want a nurse to do.

37:08

She pushed back against medical mistreatment.

37:10

She spoke up at work again and again,

37:13

and when the problems didn't get fixed, she

37:15

filed a formal complaint. Amidst

37:18

the denials and attempts to cover up

37:20

the problem, she decided to testify

37:22

about it on the national stage, even

37:24

if that meant putting her family on the run. The

37:28

first few months after the disclosures were

37:30

especially hard. I

37:33

was depressed. I stayed

37:35

in the bed four months. There

37:37

were days I didn't shower, there

37:39

were days I didn't eat. There were days

37:41

I just didn't function. I

37:44

was suicidal at one point, but I

37:46

quickly turned it off. My nine

37:48

year old told me, he was like, Mom, you gotta get up, get

37:50

rock and roll and get shaken. You'd

37:53

think all of this would make her a hero. Instead,

37:56

back in Georgia, at least, Dawn still

37:59

finds herself the target of community

38:01

harassment, blacklisted,

38:03

and until very recently, struggling

38:06

to find a job despite her nursing

38:08

qualifications. Going to a job

38:10

interview and they're like, that's sho, that's sho, that

38:12

ship that sho, And I'm like, who are you talking about? You

38:15

know, I would deny who I was.

38:18

Was not ashamed of who I was. But I

38:20

had kids and they were like, when you're

38:22

that lady. I was like, no, I'm not her. You have me mixed

38:24

up. I actually muzzle

38:27

my identity, not for a

38:29

fear of safety, but for

38:31

a fear of being unemployed. So

38:33

my life is like a fruit basket turnover.

38:37

I worked myself off of welfare. I

38:39

felt pretty good about. Hey, I have five

38:41

kids. I've been on welfare all my life,

38:44

food stamps and Medicaid, so I had worked

38:46

myself off of that. I became depressed because

38:48

I'm back on food stamps and medicaid. It's

38:51

where I am now depending on the government to

38:53

take care of a nurse who has

38:56

a degree but can't get a job, not

38:58

because she can't perform the dude, but

39:00

because you're afraid that I'm gonna find

39:03

some discrepancies inside of your facility

39:05

and I'm gonna blow the whistle. After

39:08

we recorded this interview, Dawn

39:10

was finally offered a job and tell

39:12

a medicine but she's not doing

39:14

nursing a profession. She

39:17

still sorely misses. I

39:19

put on my uniform

39:21

and I walk around the house and I wear

39:23

it, you know, and I cry.

39:26

It's a daily process. Given

39:29

all that it's cost her, you might

39:31

think Dawn regrets ever speaking out,

39:34

but she doesn't. I just believe

39:36

that the universe is gonna take care of you

39:39

for sparing the lives

39:41

of other people and speaking out

39:43

about the treatment so we can stop a lot

39:45

of these generational curses

39:48

and a lot of these generational

39:50

foundations that have been set,

39:53

there's names in words, the power glaring

40:04

injustices do remain throughout

40:07

the immigration detention system.

40:09

Here's Dana Gould. We actually

40:12

know that there have been immigrants

40:14

who have died in facilities.

40:16

We know that there's been abuse of

40:19

like people have been put in solitary confinement

40:21

civil detainees, which is defined

40:23

as torture, putting mentally

40:25

ill and medically vulnerable detainees in solitary

40:28

confinement for months. Sometimes.

40:30

There are so many examples of horrors

40:33

and failures, like gross

40:35

medical failures to basically protect

40:38

immigrants and detention, and

40:40

the failures in many ways transcend

40:43

political parties. This administration

40:46

still struggling with the issue of enormous

40:48

numbers of migrants at the border. It's

40:51

still a problem when things aren't

40:53

regulated, there isn't enough oversight. There

40:55

are pieces of legislation

40:57

moving, but you know when you talk about pieces of legislation

40:59

moving that you're in congress

41:01

land in the most politicized issue

41:04

you can think of. Right, So,

41:08

with no political solutions, who

41:11

bears the burden of preventing

41:13

these kinds of abuses going forward.

41:16

That's why we need whistleblowers. That's actually why

41:18

we need whistleblowers because at least they're kind

41:20

of preventing the

41:23

apocalypse, right, or preventing disaster

41:25

essentially by at least saying, hey, not okay.

41:28

The system is geared

41:30

to not inherently protect those interests,

41:32

but whistleblowers kind of tell that story.

41:35

They help us see that story.

41:37

The responsibility drops in everybody's

41:40

lap. It drops from

41:42

governmental down to the privately

41:44

owned sector, comes down to immigration,

41:47

customs and enforcement. It drops

41:50

down to the local facility that I worked

41:52

at, the management that was in there. It

41:54

files in the lap of the physician, It

41:56

files in the lap of my supervisor. And

42:00

at the bottom of that tree, I lie

42:02

as the roots at the bottom of that tree, screaming

42:04

to these leaves that are steady filing

42:06

off that there needs to be held

42:19

next time. On the Whistleblowers, mass

42:23

firings, dossiers of

42:25

opposition research, spies,

42:28

sex in the office, and threats

42:30

of murder suicide not

42:33

what you associate with a government run news

42:35

service. But all of this

42:37

becomes a disturbing reality when

42:39

the White House sends their guide to shake

42:41

up a little known federal agency.

42:58

The Whistleblowers is a production of Higheart

43:00

Podcasts in partnership with Best Case Studios

43:02

and ARC Media. It was hosted by me Miles

43:05

Taylor and written by me Isabel Evans

43:07

and Adam Pinkiss. Isabel Evans is

43:09

also our producer. Associate producers

43:11

are Hannah leebewooz Lockhard and Ashley Warren.

43:14

Darcy Peekel is consulting producer. Zach

43:17

Herman is the VP of Development of ARC Media.

43:19

This episode was edited by Daniel Turik

43:22

with assistance from Max Michael Miller. Original

43:24

music is by James Newberry. Executive

43:26

producers are Me Miles Taylor, Adam Pinkis

43:29

for Best Case Studios, and Barrett Goodman for

43:31

ARC Media. Beth Ann Macalouso

43:33

is our executive producer for iHeartMedia, along

43:36

with Ali Perry. Special thanks to Kevin

43:38

Phamm, all of our contributors and interviewees,

43:40

and our intern an A. Levitt, and a

43:42

big thanks to the teams at Government Accountability

43:45

Project and Whistleblower Aid, two

43:47

of the best organizations for government and private

43:49

sector whistle blowers seeking legal support.

43:52

Follow and rate the Whistleblowers on the podcast

43:55

site of your choice to hear what these

43:57

whistleblowers and others have to say

43:59

about what they eve will happen under

44:01

a second Trump administration or in the White

44:03

House of AMaGA successor. You can pick up

44:05

my new book, Blowback, from Simon and

44:07

Schuster