Dawn Wooten, left, the whistleblower nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, speaks at a news conference in Atlanta protesting conditions at the immigration jail. (Jeff Amy/ AP Photo)

Human Rights

BU Law Team Secures Release for Immigrants Who Allege Abuse by Doctor

The Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Clinic represents two women who are part of a class action lawsuit against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

When a whistleblower nurse claimed in September that a doctor had performed unnecessary and nonconsensual gynecological procedures on immigrant women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, Boston University School of Law Professor Sarah Sherman-Stokes felt it was important to discuss the news—and the long history of government sterilization and abuse of Black and brown women in the United States—in her immigration law course.

“I always start my class with a news item because immigration law is so dynamic,” says Sherman-Stokes, who is also associate director of the Immigrants’ Rights & Human Trafficking Program at BU Law.

A few weeks later, Sherman-Stokes had an update: An attorney in the network of people advocating for the women had contacted her; Sherman-Stokes and three students who participated in the clinic as 2Ls—Margaret Lovric (’21), Megan Sullivan (’21), and Kayla Walker (’21)—would be representing a Honduran woman who claims the doctor abused her. Later, they also took on the case of a woman from China. Lovric and Walker are both serving as legal assistants in the clinic this year; Sullivan volunteered to help as soon as she heard about the cases.

From left to right: Margaret Lovric (’21), Megan Sullivan (’21), and Kayla Walker (’21)

In December, the team won release for both their clients, whose claims are included in a class action filed against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Sherman-Stokes says their representation was only possible because of the women’s persistent efforts on their own behalf and the zealous advocacy of local immigrants’ rights activists.

“None of this would have been able to happen without the work of activists and organizers on the ground in Georgia,” she says. “They were going into the jail day and night, building relationships with the women and empowering them to organize amongst themselves.”

In addition to abusive medical treatment such as unnecessary hysterectomies and other procedures, the women claim the government retaliated against them for speaking out against the doctor, including by deporting them from the United States—or trying to.

“Any time a woman’s name was shared with an investigator, she was scheduled for removal,” Sherman-Stokes explains. 

That includes the Honduran woman—known as JRR—represented by Sherman-Stokes and her students. JRR found out she was scheduled to be deported when she noticed her commissary account had been “zeroed out” (the funds are returned in the form of a check when someone is released from a facility or deported). When news of the empty account reached Boston (and New York where Lovric is studying remotely), Sherman-Stokes and the team sought and won a stay of the deportation order.

“When we first took on the case, we thought we’d have a couple of weeks to get to know [the client],” Lovric says. “That turned out not to be the case. We basically had 24 to 48 hours to turn around a lot of these documents because of the situation these women were in.”

Racing against the clock, Sherman-Stokes and the students—assisted by current clinic participants Julian Bugarin (’22) and Margaret Rodriguez (’22)—interviewed their clients, obtained medical records, contacted members of Congress, spoke to family members and friends, and drafted habeas petitions and temporary restraining orders. When Sullivan requested an initial Skype meeting with the Chinese woman who needed help, ICE informed her of the scheduled call 10 minutes before it began. In those 10 minutes, Sullivan was able to enlist the help of Rodriguez and Emily Zheng (’21), a Mandarin speaker who served as interpreter (Beyond Bi (’22) also interpreted for the clinic throughout the case.)  

“It really reflects the willingness of people at BU to step up and work on these cases,” Sullivan says.

Sherman-Stokes says she “cannot overstate the incredible work of the students,” especially Lovric, Sullivan, and Walker, who were most involved.

“All three of them have just done an extraordinary job: their work ethic and attention to detail, but also their thoughtfulness and compassion,” she says. “They did it all and they did it in record time.”

Ultimately, the team won release for their clients on different grounds: JRR was especially vulnerable to COVID-19 in detention; the woman from China had been in custody longer than is allowed under a 2001 US Supreme Court decision. As part of the class action, among other relief, the women will be seeking so-called U visas, which are granted to crime victims who assist law enforcement officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity, for their cooperation in the case against the doctor. The clinic will continue to represent the women in the class action.

Sherman-Stokes praises the ongoing efforts of activists and the “courage of our clients.”

“Organizing work is the foundation for all of this,” she says. “It’s important for law students to recognize: You’re much stronger when you work in a coalition with people on the ground.”

For the students, that lesson was crystal clear. Sullivan remembers frantically working on a habeas petition at 11pm with just an hour to spare before the filing deadline.

“We would not have been able to get it filed if we weren’t able to work well together and trust each other and also have a network of people in Georgia willing to be up at midnight to file it,” Sullivan says.

Walker agrees.

“We really came into a community that already existed,” she says. “These women never gave up on their own rights and the rights of everyone around them and kept pushing their legal advocates to think bigger. We’re just trying to listen and do our best.”