MCFARLAND, Calif. (KERO) — Civil rights advocates stood outside the immigration detention centers in both McFarland and San Francisco to support a hunger strike by nearly 100 detainees. The hunger strike has been going on now for 5 days.
The advocates who came out to speak say their protest is about so much more than just improving conditions inside the facilities, arguing that these detention centers shouldn't exist at all.
Marinarde Soto yells into her microphone, hoping her speaker is loud enough to carry the words of support to the detainees inside the facility awaiting a judge's decision on whether they can stay in the country or if they will be deported.
Years of advocacy work has led Soto to become the Deportation Coordinator with the California Youth Justice Alliance, but for her, this work is personal.
"It was a traffic stop. He was coming back from work, from Bakersfield. He was driving back to Fresno. They got pulled over, the police tracked people's paperwork document. They saw that some of them were undocumented, called ICE, and ICE picked them up and took them to Arizona," said Soto. She says she was 13-years-old when her uncle was deported.
Now a mother herself, Soto talks about how hard it has been to see her uncle have to raise his kids, who are still in California, over the phone.
This and many other stories just like it were told at the conference, with some detainees calling in to talk about the conditions they are facing inside the privately owned GEO Group immigration detention centers.
The advocates claim the detainees are working sometimes 8 hours a day for a dollar in pay while being denied basic needs like showers and medical attention.
The claims of poor conditions are echoed by a detainee who is not participating in the hunger strike, but whose mother was at the conference in support of detainees' demands for change. 23ABC has agreed to conceal their identity out of concerns for their safety.
In Spanish, the detainee pleads with immigration officials and Congressmembers to pay attention to what is happening and look over the cases, asking for those detained to be given the chance to be free, and to continue working and living in the United States.
The idea behind the hunger strike is to bring awareness to conditions inside GEO Group's detention centers, but people like ACLU policy advocate Rosa Lopez say the end goal is not getting a fair wage for detainees, but to end immigration detention centers once and for all
"Investigations after investigations continue to highlight that GEO violates a lot of state and federal laws of how they are treating the people detained there," said Lopez.
Along with the investigations Lopez mentions, there have been lawsuits won by immigrants, some from those detained at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield, after complaints over covid protocol.
23ABC reached out to GEO Group, which responded with a written statement denying that any hunger strike was underway in any of its facilities. The full statement reads:
We strongly reject these baseless allegations. There is currently no hunger strike at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center or the Golden State Annex. Residents are provided three free meals daily. The meals are based on nutritional menus approved by a registered dietician. All food service operations are conducted under the federal government’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards. Allegations such as these are part of a long-standing radical campaign to attack ICE’s contractors, abolish ICE, and end federal immigration detention by proxy in the State of California. This campaign is aided by media outlets that publish unsubstantiated claims as facts, no matter how preposterous.
We also note that certain detainees take actions that are instigated and coordinated through a politically motivated and choreographed effort by outside groups. We caution the media against characterizing these coordinated actions as constituting a hunger strike when that term only relates to eating meals and not food items from the facility’s commissary.
Both the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center and Golden State Annex provide around-the-clock access to medical care, which includes access to a cadre of medical professionals such as physicians, nurses, dentists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, as well as referrals to off-site medical specialists, imaging facilities, and local community hospitals as needed.
In addition, based upon ICE’s detailed requirements, all of GEO’s Processing Centers facilitate access to legal services and provide personal and group religious worship opportunities. The centers also provide enhanced recreational amenities, including an artificial turf soccer field, covered pavilions, exercise equipment, flat screen TVs in living areas, and leisure and legal libraries. Both facilities were also recently reaccredited by the American Correctional Association.
As a service provider to ICE, GEO plays no role in decisions related to the assignment, transfer, or release of individuals to or from ICE Processing Centers. All decisions regarding a person’s temporary release from detention for personal reasons, or determinations related to an individual’s deportation or release status, are made exclusively by the federal government and the administrative courts. Accordingly, we refer you to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for any further relevant information.
Detainees, advocates, and family members aren't buying it, and they want to see these centers gone.
"The only corporation and group that benefits is the private prison owners, and so there is no role or function for civil prisons. People can wait for the immigration process in their homes, back in their communities," said Lopez.
ICE has said in the past that the reason for these detention centers is for noncitizens they deem to either be a risk to public safety or a flight risk, and the decisions on who is put in the detention center are made on a case-by-case basis.
Soto says the facilities are overstepping even their stated legal purposes.
"Some of them are transferred from prisons after serving their sentence, but that is the thing. They served their sentence," said Soto. "They committed whatever offense they committed, they served their time, there is no need for them to be transferred to a detention facility. If they have to fight their immigration case, let them fight their immigration case free. Let them be out. Let them be with their families."
The advocates and family members say they will continue the constant communications with those inside the detention facility about how the labor and hunger strikes are going, and will continue to support them for as long as is needed to see the change they want.
