Illegals detained by ICE go on hunger strike at NW Detention Center
Immigrants detained by ICE go on hunger strike at NW Detention Center
by KATU.com Staff
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Northwest Detention Center (KOMO file photo)
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TACOMA, Wash. – More than 100 people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) went on a hunger strike Monday in protest of their treatment inside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
Immigrants’ rights activists said a demand letter was handed around the facility before the dozens of immigrants refused their lunch on Monday.
They are calling for expedited hearings with an immigration judge, better access to medical care, improved food quality, lower commissary prices, and an increase in the $1-a-day wage for “running all of the prison’s basic services.”
A similar hunger strike played out in 2014.
The detainees will still be offered three meals a day and they will be counseled on the health risks, said ICE spokesperson Rose Richeson. You can read ICE’s full statement below.
“Detention conditions were already terrible under Obama, and from what we’re hearing, they’ve gotten even worse since Trump’s election,” a spokesperson for NW Detention Center Resistance said in a prepared statement. “We know from past hunger strikes that ICE and GEO are quick to retaliate, and we want the hunger strikers to know that they are not alone.”
Richeson said they respect the rights of anyone voicing their opinions, and will not retaliate against those taking part in the hunger strike.
Full statement from Richeson:
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care. Individuals at all ICE facilities have access to meals served three times daily at the cafeteria, and the Northwest Detention Facility also provides snacks and/or food available for purchase from a commissary. If individuals are found to go without eating for 72 hours, they will become subject to the agency’s protocols for handling hunger strikes – see link. Individuals on a hunger strike will continue to be offered three meals daily and provided an adequate supply of drinking water or other beverages. They will also be counseled about the related medical risks.
ICE fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference and does not retaliate in any way against hunger strikers.”
http://katu.com/news/local/immigrant...tention-center
Hunger strike at Tacoma immigration detention center grows to 750, activist says
Originally published April 13, 2017 at 1:04 pm Updated April 13, 2017 at 8:26 pm
Mike Carter
An anti-detention group spokeswoman says as many as 750 detainees are refusing meals at the privately run Northwest Detention Center.
TACOMA — Female detainees have joined in a hunger strike to protest conditions at the 1,500-bed Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, an anti-detention activist said Thursday.
Maru Mora Villalpando, a spokeswoman for NWDC Resistance, a group run by detainees, said as many as 750 detainees are refusing meals at the privately run detention center.
The strike was in its fourth day on Thursday with no sign of ending despite ongoing negotiations between detainees, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the GEO Group, the prison contractor that operates the facility.
Detainees are reportedly protesting the quality of food, facility hygiene, access to medical care, lack of recreation and what they allege are exorbitant commissary prices. The detainees also are seeking an increase in the $1 a day they are paid for performing menial jobs around the detention center.
The strike has been led by the anti-detention group NWDC Resistance, which is composed of detainees and seeks to end all immigration-related detentions.
A handful of supporters are staying in a makeshift shelter of plastic tarps and blankets just outside the gates of the detention center, a sprawling, fenced facility located in Tacoma’s tideflats. The center houses as many as 1,500 civil detainees who are awaiting immigration hearings or deportation.
Among the supporters Thursday was Alexis Erickson, 23, who said her husband, Cristian Lopez, was picked up by ICE three months ago and deported to Mexico earlier this week. She claimed her husband had been mistreated while being held at the detention center.
On Wednesday, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the agency would release specifics on the number of detainees who had refused food for 72 hours or nine meals in a row, triggering a hunger-strike protocol and a medical response.
However, on Thursday Kice said those numbers were not yet available and that the agency was still trying to determine which detainees are participating in the strike.
She said the agency had postponed implementing the protocol while that determination was being made. Eventually, detainees who continue to refuse to eat will be isolated so they can be monitored, Kice said.
“The situation is very fluid,” she said. “Detainees who formally declare their intention to undertake a hunger strike will be transferred to a dedicated housing unit so they can be closely monitored to ensure their welfare.”
Kice said the number of detainees who refuse to eat continues to fluctuate between meals.
She said all detainees engaged in the hunger strike will continue to be offered three meals daily and provided an adequate supply of drinking water or other beverages.
Villalpando said Thursday that negotiations between the detainees, ICE and the GEO Group — which initially had been promising — were not successful.
She said that detainees — who have been in routine touch with family members and supporters by phone and emails — voted pod by pod for the most part to continue the strike.
In the meantime, Villalpando said strikers were complaining of retaliation through transfers to other facilities and being placed in isolation. There was no independent verification of those incidents.
She said one group of striking detainees complained that at lunch on Thursday they were offered chicken for the first time in months. Most meals, they say, consist of rice and beans.
Villalpando believes the meal was prepared to mock the strikers.
“It’s just cruel,” she said.
Kice called the accusation “specious” and said menus are prepared weeks in advance.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...activist-says/
