Key Points
Mainstream news media has provided minimal coverage of the forced sterilization of detainees in ICE Detention Centers.
Sterilization and eugenics is a recurring but little-known practice in the US.
Immigration reporting often cites white nationalist and eugenicist groups as expert sources.
The conditions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Centers have occasionally appeared among trending news topics, especially during Donald Trump's presidency. Left-leaning news organizations were especially critical of the detention centers during this time, running stories about children being separated from parents and low supplies of basic necessities in the facilities. The topic was especially popular throughout 2019, but it declined in popularity soon enough and is now only seen in mainstream news coverage every few months. For example, the most recent CNN reporting that even mentions ICE Detention Centers was published in October, 2021.
While detention centers do receive the occasional mainstream media coverage, the forced sterilization of female detainees in these facilities is not a topic commonly discussed in immigration reporting. This is not to say that there is a lack of information on the subject; universities, law schools and humanitarian organizations have extensive writing on this issue. However, the average person is likely not regularly seeking out information on forced sterilization in ICE facilities. Without coverage of this topic in national news media, most people are probably not going to know that this is occurring.
The sterilization of immigrants is not an isolated incident in the United States — eugenics has been practiced throughout US history, namely targeting Black, indigenous and Latino people. Nazi eugenics practices were even reportedly inspired by those practiced in the US. While the US government admitted to forcibly sterilizing indigenous women, Black women, and Latina women through eugenics policies through the 1970s, reports of excessive hysterectomies and neglectful reproductive care among racial minorities have continued through the 21st century.
In 2020 when the Department of Homeland Security began investigating a complaint filed by the Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide citing a high rate of hysterectomies being performed on detainees, several mainstream news outlets provided coverage of the issue including Fox News, CNN and NBC News. None of these three outlets, however, have provided any follow up to the issue since the initial articles in 2020.
The problem does not stop with the lack of reporting though, as Media Matters for America has recently criticized local news organizations along the US–Mexico border for citing organizations founded by white supremacists and eugenicists as expert sources on immigration. These organizations include the Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, all three of which were founded by John Tanton who explicitly stated that he wanted to reduce immigration in order to maintain a white majority in the US. News outlets in Texas, Arizona and California have cited the three organizations numerous times as either an expert source or as a group that simply advocates for tighter immigration laws. For example, News4SA in San Antonio, Texas cited data from the Center for Immigration Studies without stating that the organization is not an impartial source.