 |
BREAKING:
100+ in 3 centers refuse meals+demand freedom from #ThanksgivingwithICE #Not1More (Image source: DRUM on Twitter)
|
As US families celebrated
Thanksgiving, over 100 refugees held at three immigration detention facilities
engaged in a nationwide hunger strike. Hunger strikers are calling for an end
to detentions and deportations, among other demands. The hunger strikes began
on Thanksgiving eve by asylum seekers, mostly South Asians, held in three
detention centers in California and Alabama.
Californian
authorities confirmed that 21 asylum seekers at Musick Jail in Irvine, and 14
at Theo Lacy Jail in Orange, began refusing meals around mid-day on Wednesday, according to
the Orange County Register.
RT USA report continues:
"Musick
actually started during the daytime," Fahd Ahmed, director of the New
York-based Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) told the OC
Weekly. "Officers moved in and threatened the detainees."
 |
|
© Eduardo
Munoz / Reuters
|
Four
ended their hunger strike two hours in, but others who stayed committed got
immediately transferred from Musick Jail over to Theo Lacy for observation.
“US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement takes the health and safety of those in its
care seriously,” Virginia Kice, ICE spokeswoman told the Orange County
Register. “Accordingly, the agency is closely monitoring the welfare of 35
residents housed at Theo Lacy immigration detention facility.”
Under
federal immigration guidelines, detainees on hunger strike are advised of the
risk to their health and are still offered three meals a day and given a
regular supply of drinking water and other beverages.
RT
contacted ICE for an update on the hunger strikes but the agency’s spokesperson
is away on federal holiday over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Other
hunger strikes are also underway at Alabama’s Etowah Detention Center with 48
men on strike, and Otay in San Diego where 26 were on strike.
The
hunger strikers have issued demands: They are calling for an end to all
detentions and deportations, and release on parole or supervision for those
held more than six months. They are seeking improved detention conditions with
better medical access, phone, clothing, food and discipline.
Many
of the detention facilities have been outed for poor conditions and
services by Detention Watch Network, Washington DC-based organization.
Alabama’s Etoweh is said to have the poorest conditions, including spoiled
food.
Attorney
Paromita Shah of the National Lawyers Guild said prolonged detention of asylum
seekers violates a Department of Homeland Security policy known as the parole
directive.
“Under
that protocol, if you pass what’s called a credible fear interview, which is an
interview that happens when someone presents themselves at the U.S. border and
requests asylum, there’s an interview that’s conducted by an asylum officer and
they will either decide whether the person has passed the credible fear
interview or not passed the credible fear interview,” Shah told Free Speech
Radio News. “And in almost all these cases, they passed their credible fear
interview. However, the policy directs that they should be released and that
really has just been violated for several months now and no one is very clear
as to why this is happening."
Shah
said instead of people being released to prepare for these very complicated
cases to defend against very complicated charges that are being brought against
them, instead the asylum seekers are forced to collect evidence in detention
far away from any legal resources.
Many
of the hunger strikers are from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who came
to the US through the Mexican border. The UN Refugee Agency said it had
recorded a nearly five-fold increase in asylum seekers arriving in the US from
the Northern Triangle region of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala since 2008.
Those
detainees from Bangladesh are escaping persecution and violence in their home
countries and fear being forcibly returned home, according to DRUM. Many of
them are targeted for their affiliations with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party
(BNP), a political opponent to the current government. The BNP is classified by
the Department of Homeland Security as a Tier III terrorist organization, a
label that immigrant advocacy groups adamantly reject.
“ICE
is keeping these people in indefinite detention when they should be released,”
said Ahmed, director of DRUM in a press statement. “They came to this country
seeking safety and instead have been placed behind bars to fill a detention bed
quota for years at a time.”
This
is the latest of a succession of hunger strikes by inmates at other ICE
facilities in California, Louisiana, Texas, over the past few months.
On
October 14, 54 South Asian asylum seeks from Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan and
Pakistan refused food and water at the El Paso detention center in Texas. Five
days later, another 14 Indian and Bangladeshi immigrants began a solidarity
hunger strike at the Lasalle Detention Center in Louisiana.
On
October 28, 27 women, mostly from Central America and Mexico at the T. Don
Hutto Facility, a facility in Taylor, Texas, run by Corrections Corporation of
America (CCA), also began a hunger strike asking for immediate release.
In
their letters, made public by a civil rights group, they highlight “grave
injustices,” detentions of up to 18 months, inedible food, and “little or no
security.”
“There
are grave injustices being committed, detentions spanning eight months, 10
months, a year, a year and a half, so in the end we are being told we have no
rights and will be deported, with offensive words and gestures that make us
feel worthless,” Magdrola, from Guatemala, wrote in her letter, published by
Grassroots Leadership along with 16 letters from other detainees.
On
the same day, 400 men detained at the Adelanto immigration in center,
California, also went on hunger strike.
“Over
the last two weeks, I have visited men at El Paso and LaSalle while they were
on hunger strike. They remained hopeful, but it was so difficult to watch them.
I saw them weak from hunger, beaten down by the system that threw many of them
into solitary confinement in reaction to them exercising a First Amendment
right,” Jan Meslin, Director of Social Chance for Community Initiatives for
Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), a national network of visitation
programs told OC Watch told #NotOneMore.
“As these men at Adelanto
launch this fourth hunger strike, we want to remind ICE and GEO Group officials
that we are watching for retaliation and we will not stand by if they retaliate
against any of these brave people, trying to highlight the horrid conditions of
their captivity.”
No comments:
Post a Comment