Thread: Hunger strike at Adelanto ICE detention facility grossly exaggerated, officials say

Edna Monroy, center, of Los Angeles, addresses the media Thursday in front of The Federal Building at 300 North Los Angeles Street, in downtown Los Angeles. “I’m here in solidarity with all hunger strikers to demand their immediate release,” said Edna Monroy. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

By Doug Saunders, The Sun
POSTED: 06/15/17, 6:27 PM PDT | UPDATED: 1 DAY AGO

ADELANTO >> The threat of a hunger strike at an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement immigration holding facility has ended.

On Monday, nine Central American men who refused to return to their beds for the morning count locked arms in a stance of defiance, according to a statement issued by ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

Officers used pepper spray to subdue the detainees in an effort to avoid a physical altercation.

According to a statement issued by the Human Rights Alliance for Child Refugees & Families, the men staged a hunger strike after being handcuffed, pepper sprayed and brutally beaten by guards.

ICE officials say that statement is a false characterization of what really happened.

“The assertion by advocates that the men involved in this disturbance were “drenched” with pepper spray and “beaten” is a gross and regrettable exaggeration,” Kice wrote. “I’ve conferred at length with the Assistant Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations who is based at Adelanto and oversees the agency’s activities at the facility. He advises that after the men refused to comply with officers’ commands, the supervisory officer deployed pepper spray.”

When several of the men continued to physically resist commands to submit to mechanical restraints, due to concerns about the safety of the facility’s staff and other detainees, the officers applied the necessary degree of force to extract the resisting detainees from the residence unit and transfer them to a restricted housing area, the dispatch continued to state.

Following that incident, eight of the nine men said they were going to begin a hunger strike in protest.

According to ICE protocol, it takes a person refusing to eat for 72 hours before it’s classified as a hunger strike. During that initial time and every other day afterward, each detainee is offered three meals a day, each is provided an adequate supply of drinking water or other beverages, and staff closely monitors the health of everyone involved.

“For those individuals, ICE will implement the hunger strike protocols, which includes close medical supervision,” Kice wrote. “The men indicated they were frustrated by the ‘slow’ progress of their cases, although most have been in ICE custody less than a month.”

By Tuesday, all of the men began eating meals, but 29 women decided they, too, were going to begin a hunger strike in protest. After missing two meals, those women also ended their protest and ate dinner.

Ivan Villanueva, a spokesman for Human Rights Alliance for Child Refugees & Families, claimed the Adelanto facility only feeds detainees once a day.

“They only feed them once a day, and the food isn’t tasty,” Villanueva said in a phone interview Thursday. “They don’t get the water they should either.”

But officials say that claim is another exaggeration by the civil rights organization.

“Per ICE detention standards, all ICE detainees receive three meals daily using menus developed by a registered dietician, who ensures individuals unique health, dietary, and religious needs are met,” Kice wrote in an email. “We provide various beverages, depending on the meal, and detainees also have 24/7 access to water. Beyond that, detainees are able to purchase additional food, beverages, and condiments — if they choose — through a commissary service.”

http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20...-officials-say

LOL!! Why do they think a hunger strike would be an effective protest effort in the United States to begin with? Where do they get these stupid ideas??!!

Hunger strikes tend to get a lot of media attention, that's about all they accomplish.

Yeah, but only when you're doing it out in the open on a mat like Ghandi, not in prison where no one can see you.

All those who resist and cause trouble get on the bus directly to the BORDER.

They came through Mexico and they can go right back through Mexico!

Oh geez, I am so sick of foreign protesters I could puke!!