New York / Miami, United States.
More than a hundred inmates of immigrant detention centers of the United States are on hunger strike in an act of protest for the poor conditions they report are living in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic and demanding that they be released.
More than twenty people at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center in New Jersey have begun a hunger strike to demand their release, they reported Thursday ProInmigrant activists, Who also demanded better health conditions in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, a Florida, immigrants in ICE custody at the Glades County Detention Center began a hunger strike on December 28, according to reports received by group advocates Alliance for Action for Immigrants, And this Wednesday more than 100 men and women took part in the strike.
In this case, your main demand is to be able to talk to one ICE representative to be able to detail the conditions in which they are in this prison operated by the county of Glades and that maintains an agreement with the migration agency.
en New Jersey, In turn, the Abolish ICE coalition communicated this Thursday in a letter to Governor Phil Murphy that 24 immigrants detained at the ICE Detention Center in Essex County Jail are on hunger strike to demand their release and that others will begin on Monday at center of Hudson County, in both cases after other recent strikes.
attention
“The strike coincides with a rise in cases of covid-19 in detention centers, which creates fear, a sense of urgency and exacerbates the already harsh conditions of those in prisons and ICE centers, “the letter states, which is part of a signature campaign to demand that the authorities attention to the matter.
According to the latest ICE figures, there are currently 497 inmates who have tested positive in the covid-19 test and are in isolation or follow-up for this reason.
In addition, the activist group accused Anthony Cureton, a Bergen bailiff, of New Jersey, To invite photographers to document the cleaning of some cells in an “advertising ploy” that, they allege, seeks to “cover up” the deportation of a father and the reports of some detainees on “unhealthy, unsafe and inhumane conditions“During the pandemic.
Marlene Nava Ramos, representative of the organization Critical resistance, Denounced mentioned in a note the “family separation“The” mental torture of indefinite detention “and the” trauma “of the detainees, and vindicated the courage of 10 men who recently went on a 34-day hunger strike in Bergen and who have faced” retaliation “, a of them deportation.
According to “Abolish ICE”, detainees in Bergen “they have been consistently denied cleaning supplies, PPE (protective equipment) and medical care during the pandemic “and documented cell cleaning”it is a farce“Because”multiple people arrested“They continue to report poor conditions and there have been 7 diagnoses of covid-19, according to ICE statistics.
The ten men faced reprisals such as “denying water, medical care, heating, blocking windows and handling of center staff“And beyond that five of them were transferred to other centers, one of whom was deported. Two of them” managed to get freedom “after the hunger strike, the note states.
These hunger strike announcements come when an outbreak of the disease is reported covid-19 at Yuba County Jail in California, where, according to court documents revealed by the KQED media, more than 80 people have tested positive for the virus in this prison, which also houses immigrants detained by ICE.