Seattle, March 13 (RHC)-- At least 750 prisoners at a Washington state immigration jail have launched a hunger strike. The strikers at the Northwest Detention Center are protesting the Barack Obama administration’s record deportations as well as poor conditions that include wages of just one dollar a day for prison labor.
Some areas of the prison have been locked down, and around 30 people are reportedly being held in isolation or crowded cells.
The prison is run by The GEO Group, a contractor for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. According to The Nation magazine, GEO recently violated a pledge to refrain from lobbying Congress on immigration reform, presumably in favor of for-profit jails.