immigrants in tacoma, US, jail start mass hungerstrike

[Sasha]

Jailed Immigrants Launch Hunger Strike At Tacoma Detention Center

Posted by Ansel Herz (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ansel-herz/Author?oid=16570457) on Sat, Mar 8, 2014 at 8:16 AM

http://www.thestranger.com/binary/0ce9/1394266933-img_1588.jpg
An immigrant detainee handed the note in the picture above to a lawyer on Friday outlining their reasons for going on hunger strike at Tacoma's Northwest Detention Center, according to immigrants rights advocates, who say 1200 detainees are participating. "They were pretty adamant that their demands are improved working conditions and that this is a statement against the deportations every week. They're willing to keep striking until their demands are met," says the lawyer, who has represented dozens of clients at the facility for the past five years.
The lawyer requested anonymity out of fear of having visitation privileges revoked by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, saying, "I wouldn't want to have my clients suffer." In a separate visitation session, a second detainee confirmed the ongoing hunger strike, the lawyer says (after an unusually long wait time to see both clients).
Andrew Munoz, an ICE spokesman, said he isn't ready to comment yet. The agency considers anyone going without food for at least 72 hours to be on hunger strike.
According to the attorney, hundreds of detainees at the facility were inspired by a group of protesters who locked arms in the driveway of the privately-run facility last week. Those activists claimed to have blocked vehicles loaded with deportees (http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/02/24/protesters-lock-arms-to-block-immigrant-detention-center) from exiting. As I explained in that report, the facility has been criticized for alleged abuses, but continues to hold between 1200-1500 immigrant detainees admist a record-breaking deportation spree by the Obama administration. ICE pays GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut, to operate the facility and other immigrant detention centers around the country. The Nation reported last year that GEO, despite promises that it wouldn't, lobbied Congress on immigration reform (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/06/2110971/private-prison-firm-lobbying-on-immigration-reform-despite-pledges-not-to/) and alternatives to detention (presumably against them).
"They saw the impact that made and so they chose themselves to take a stand," the lawyer explains. "They wanted to start it on a Friday because that's a day people are detained to a different cell to get deported." Detainees who speak Spanish were able to "coordinate from pod to pod" and plan the hunger strike while guards assumed they were talking about nothing special.
This appears to be the first instance of collective action against conditions at the facility by detainees in its history. They're not eating and not working—the detainees are paid $1 per day, the lawyer says, to work in the kitchen and in clean up crews. In response, "those who are more actively involved are getting their blankets, pillows, and clothes taken away," the lawyer says.
Last year, a hunger strike by thousands of inmates in California's prisons (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/05/local/la-me-ff-prison-strike-20130906) triggered calls for hearings on conditions in the jails and piecemeal reforms within the system.
"They're in high spirits and they're hopeful and they want to keep going as long as they can."
UPDATE: ICE issued the following statement confirming the strike but disputing the number of detainees participating: "As of Friday evening, approximately 750 ICE detainees, out of nearly 1,300 detainees currently housed at the Northwest Detention Center, declined to eat scheduled meals and indicated that they are on a hunger strike. The detainees are under continuous observation by detention center staff and medical personnel. In accordance with ICE detention standards, detainees who refuse food for 72 hours will be considered to be on a hunger strike and referred to the medical department for further evaluation."



http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/08/jailed-immigrants-launch-hunger-strike-at-tacoma-detention-center

[Sasha]

Retaliations and forcefeeding.are being rolled out; http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/11/immigration-authorities-says-they-may-force-feed-hunger-striking-detainees-in-tacoma

[Sasha]

Immigrants in a Texas jail went on hungerstrike too, I wonder wheter this will grow to a nationwide action; http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/17/immigrant-detainees-in-texas-launch-their-own-hunger-strike-citing-washington-as-inspiration

[Red Commissar]

Immigrants in a Texas jail went on hungerstrike too, I wonder wheter this will grow to a nationwide action; http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/17/immigrant-detainees-in-texas-launch-their-own-hunger-strike-citing-washington-as-inspiration

And here's from a source in Texas on the same subject

http://www.texasobserver.org/immigrants-launch-hunger-strike-texas-detention-center/


Immigrants Launch Hunger Strike in Texas Detention Center

by Priscila Mosqueda (http://www.texasobserver.org/author/priscila-mosqueda/) Published on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, at 4:29 CST


http://www.texasobserver.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Polk-County-Caravan-Elaine-769x448.jpg Marissa Barnett
Activists and members of families separated by immigration detention leave a Father's Day gift outside the Polk County facility in June.








Immigrants in a for-profit detention center in Conroe are refusing to eat to protest conditions at the facility. The protests in Texas follow a similar hunger strike that began two weeks ago at a Tacoma, Washington, detention center. Both facilities are owned by scandal-plagued GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company (http://www.texasobserver.org/give-us-your-tired-your-poor-your-huddled-masses-we-have-private-prisons-to-fill/) in the world. The protests are part of a wave of hunger strikes that immigrants have started in detention centers across the nation to call attention to what they say is the unjust practice of locking up immigrants and separating families through deportation.


The families of the detainees on Wednesday gathered outside the all-male Joe Corley Detention Facility north of Houston to call on jail officials not to retaliate against the hunger strike leaders. Adelina Caceres said that her partner, David Vasquez, has been kept in solitary confinement at Corley as punishment for helping to start the strike. Vasquez has been in the detention center for nearly a year, she said.


As of Tuesday, 120 detainees were participating in the strike, according to Cristina Parker, an organizer with Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based group that opposes private prisons. The detention center is capable of holding 1,517.


Vasquez and Manuel Martinez began the strike Sunday at midnight, according to advocates. In individual letters released Monday, the two men demand an end to deportations as well as the controversial Secure Communities program, which uses local law enforcement to funnel immigrants into the federal government’s deportation system.


The men say many detainees have already paid fines and done time in county jails, only to be picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) upon release and put into immigrant detention centers.


This aggressive dragnet is partly driven by a mandate established by Congress (http://www.npr.org/2013/11/19/245968601/little-known-immigration-mandate-keeps-detention-beds-full) in 2006, a quota requiring ICE to fill 34,000 prison beds every night. Advocates say the mandate leads to the detention of U.S. residents as well as undocumented immigrants who commit minor infractions. But it’s been a boon to private prison companies, essentially guaranteeing a steady stream of detainees.


Echoing those in Washington State, Texas detainees are decrying overcrowding and unjust treatment by guards, who they say are disrespectful and verbally abusive. They call for better food, affordable prices at the commissary and reasonable phone rates. Neither ICE nor the GEO Group responded to requests for comment.


A detention center in Elroy, Arizona, saw two different hunger strikes last summer, one by a group of activists called the “Dream 9,” who together attempted to cross the Mexican border and were placed in detention. They were eventually released while they pursue their asylum cases. In October, a group of DREAM Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act) students who named themselves the “Dream 30” and who together attempted to cross the border at Laredo, similarly began a hunger strike inside an El Paso detention center.


The most recent strike, in Tacoma, peaked at 750 participants. That number eventually dwindled to three, but those strikers continued into their 13th day on Wednesday. Yesterday, two of the three protesters sent messages of encouragement to the Texas strikers. In a recording in Spanish, Ramon Mendez Pascual says, “The only thing I want to say is don’t be afraid, we must keep going, so that we are heard and so that we can be free.”



What's sad is that I heard of this first through other sources like the slog, not Texas. The respectable media here doesn't concern itself too much with immigrants unless it's boosting for the wall.



On a related topic, Texas is really, really addicted to prisons. The state hosts some of the more pervasive contracts with prison companies, including GEO Group at the center of this as well as the larger Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).