ICE is deporting women amid criminal investigation into Georgia doctor

WASHINGTON — Four months ago, a Honduran immigrant named Jackelin was taken from Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia to see a local gynecologist.

Then a few weeks ago, lawyers for Jackelin and 16 other women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed investigators that the women wanted to testify against the doctor, who's now at the center of a criminal investigation amid allegations that he pressured patients at Irwin to undergo unnecessary medical procedures, including hysterectomies.

Since then, immigration officials have moved to deport the 33-year-old mother of five, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has lived here for more than five years. Jackelin was scheduled for a Wednesday deportation flight, until a last-minute order came for her to remain at the rural Georgia facility.

This is the uncertainty for Jackelin and other women at Irwin who face imminent deportation by ICE, despite an ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security inspector general's office that focuses on their experiences with the gynecologist, Dr. Mahendra Amin.

The women — the majority of whom are Black or Latina, from the Caribbean, Africa and Latin