NBC Settles Lawsuit After Pushing Discredited ICE Facility Abuse Claims

NBCUniversal has reached a settlement after falsely reporting that a Georgia doctor performed mass hysterectomies on illegal immigrants at an ICE detention center. The lawsuit, filed by Dr. Mahendra Amin, exposed how the network’s top reporters and hosts ran with an inflammatory story despite internal doubts about its accuracy.

The accusations began in 2020 when former nurse and whistleblower Dawn Wooten claimed women at an ICE facility in Georgia were subjected to unauthorized hysterectomies. NBC reporters Julia Ainsley, Jacob Soboroff and Danielle Silva published a story identifying Amin as a “uterus collector,” alleging that he carried out unnecessary procedures on detainees. The claims were then repeated by MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Chris Hayes.

A Senate subcommittee later disproved the allegations, finding that Amin had only performed two hysterectomies at the facility between 2017 and 2019, both of which were medically necessary and approved by ICE. Additionally, both patients had signed consent forms, contradicting NBC’s reporting.

The lawsuit revealed that NBCUniversal executives were aware of credibility concerns before publishing the story. Internal emails showed that Chris Scholl, NBC’s senior deputy head of Standards, questioned the validity of Wooten’s claims, noting that she lacked direct knowledge and provided no evidence. Another NBC reporter admitted that ICE data would likely disprove the accusations, but the network pushed forward anyway.

Judge Lisa Godbet Wood found that NBC made 39 “verifiably false” statements about Amin and determined that a jury could reasonably conclude the network acted with “actual malice.”

The terms of the settlement remain undisclosed, but NBC’s willingness to settle suggests the network sought to avoid further legal scrutiny over its reckless reporting.

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