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 In the U.S., at least 77 people held at two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in California have launched a hunger strike, demanding the facilities shut down and release all detainees.  

San Francisco, February 20 (RHC)-- In the U.S., at least 77 people held at two Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in California have launched a hunger strike, demanding the facilities shut down and release all detainees.  

The hunger strike is an extension of an ongoing labor protest led by people held at the Mesa Verde-Golden State ICE jails, who are paid just $1 a day for their work, including janitorial services where they’ve been exposed to black mold. 

Officials at the detention centers, which are operated by the private prison contractor GEO Group, have retaliated against the strikers by putting them in solitary confinement.

Meanwhile, a new report by the group Innovation Law Lab describes how immigrants and asylum seekers held at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico are being subjected to torturous methods, including solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, medical neglect, and severe due process violations that lead to wrongful deportations.

In other news, the immigrant justice group Al Otro Lado has sued CoreCivic for the wrongful death of Anthony Jones, a Bahamian man who died of a heart attack at the Adams County Detention Center in Mississippi in December 2020.  The suit says staff failed to send him to the hospital and waited at least nine minutes before administering CPR.