Pressure on ICE has been growing as detained immigrants across the state hold repeated protests calling for freedom and for an end to abuse & injustice
Media contact: Alex Mensing | alex[@]ccijustice.org | 415.684.5463
September 23, 2024
For Immediate Release
San Francisco, CA – On Sunday morning, over seventy people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Golden State Annex (Golden State) and Desert View Annex (Desert View) immigrant detention centers began new hunger strikes. On Monday morning, ten additional people detained at Golden State joined the hunger strike, bringing the total number of individuals refusing to eat at the two California facilities to over 80. Pressure has been growing on ICE to terminate its contracts with these abuse-plagued detention centers–as well as others including Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center (Mesa Verde)–where dozens of people have engaged in sit-ins, hunger strikes and labor strikes to protest the violent and unjust practices of ICE and its private prison operators.
“I’m going on hunger strike for the third time because I want ICE and those with authority to make a difference and I don’t see them doing anything,” said Jonathan Montes, a hunger striker who has lived nearly his entire life in California and who has been separated from his family by ICE at Golden State for around fifteen months. “I’ve seen my friends face retaliation, get sick, pass out, and get transferred out of state as punishment for standing up for what’s right. People in here are putting their lives on the line and the least that Polly Kaiser can do is meet with us,” he added, referring to the San Francisco ICE Field Office Director who is responsible for oversight of Golden State.
Since July, people detained at Golden State and Mesa Verde have held a series of labor and hunger strikes that follow in the footsteps of similar strikes in 2022 and 2023 which were paused after brutal retaliation by ICE including solitary confinement, extreme force, out-of-state transfers and threats of force-feeding. The current hunger strike is not the first for Desert View Annex, either, where 75 immigrants recently refused to eat for several days to protest unjust detention and inhumane conditions.
“I hope that ICE and GEO will begin to create a dialogue with us detained people and the organizations that support our voice,” said Carlos Vazquez, who has been detained at Desert View for nearly twenty months and is currently on hunger strike. “So that we can begin to bring real change and stop the injustice that is deeply rooted in these detention facilities. We here at Desert View Annex are locked in arms with our detained brothers in Mesa Verde, Golden State Annex and other detention facilities. And we will continue to hold hunger and labor strikes until we see justice and change.”
Numerous recent civil rights complaints, letters, reports, administrative complaints, lawsuits, Congressional letters and government fines support detained immigrants’ testimonies of abuse and inhumane conditions. Advocates tracking violations at Golden State and Mesa Verde have received reports of nearly 800 violations since July 1 of this year.
Strikers’ demands to ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner and San Francisco ICE Field Office Director Polly Kaiser include:
Contract termination: End ICE’s contracts for immigrant detention centers
Freedom: Review our cases for release fairly
End Solitary Confinement
Stop Violating Your Own Standards: ensure adequate medical care, mental health care and food, and end retaliation
Phone calls: stop charging us to call our families, lawyers and communities
As these hunger strikes are launched, immigrant justice advocates and faith leaders prepare to hold solidarity gatherings this week at Golden State, Mesa Verde and Desert View Annex as part of the third annual Pilgrimage to End Detention, “a multi-day interfaith journey dedicated to advocating for the closure of California’s six remaining immigrant detention centers” organized by the Dignity Not Detention coalition and Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.
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