‘This Virus Kills Way Too Many People.’ Hunger-Striking ICE Detainees Demand Answers. Across the country, hunger strikes in ICE detention centers are taking on new urgency during the pandemic. by Marcia Brown 5:31 PM

Chris Carlson/AP Photo

Dozens of immigrant detainees in the Adelanto, California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center run by the for-profit company GEO Group began a hunger strike on April 10. The next day, more men joined. By Tuesday, virtually every man in the more-than-100-person unit had joined. On Wednesday, April 15, more than 100 immigrants refused to buy food from the commissary, keeping up their rebellion and calling on ICE to treat them like human beings.

“Once [the virus] comes in this place, there’s no way of stopping it,” said one Adelanto detainee who is participating in the hunger strike. He asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation.

“It will spread like wildfire. Everybody’s scared. Everybody’s worried. This virus kills way too many people.”

More from Marcia Brown

On April 14, these hunger strikers won one of their demands: a meeting with GEO staff, including the Adelanto warden and lieutenant, as well as the facility nurse and head of psychology. In preparation for the meeting, everyone in Unit W-3 collectively decided what questions to ask and selected three speakers to represent the group during the meeting. At the moment, Adelanto has no confirmed cases, but given how the coronavirus has already spread in ICE detention centers, jails, and prisons, detainees believe it’s only a matter of time.

Some of their questions were answered, but many were not. The GEO staff confirmed that there were no cases of COVID-19 in Adelanto and promised to administer a test if someone showed symptoms. When the immigrants asked if staff had a “course of action to ensure our safety,” staff said that they were following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But when asked if Adelanto had enough ventilators and medical staff to care for the more than 1,000 detainees should a sizable number get sick, staff demurred. Indeed, during the roughly 20-minute meeting, the detainee said, the warden and other representatives answered specific questions by repeating that the facility would “follow CDC guidelines.”

When asked why so many GEO staff didn’t have the proper safety equipment, staff again demurred, according to the immigrant who spoke to the Prospect.

Around the country, ICE detainees have resorted to hunger strikes as one of the few tactics they can employ.

Now, these Adelanto detainees want to talk to an ICE representative to get actual answers to their questions and to demand that they be protected.

Both GEO and ICE are denying that a hunger strike is even taking place. The girlfriend of one detainee told the Prospect that after her boyfriend took a picture of the men standing in solidarity, GEO staff retaliated by blocking his video calls to family.

For its part, ICE denied that 100 detainees were on a hunger strike, saying that just two were taking part in the protest. ICE added that common areas in the facility are being disinfected multiple times per day and that there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Adelanto. But, as has been reported nationally, ICE has refused to report how many people it is testing.

When asked about ICE’s denial that the hunger strike is taking place, one detainee and the girlfriend of another each told the Prospect that this was not true—that dozens of detainees were still keeping up the strike. “They’re liars,” said the girlfriend. If there was no strike, she added, the staff “wouldn’t be pulling in [my boyfriend] the way they are now,” referring to the staff’s confrontation with her boyfriend over their blocking his calls.

By Thursday, some men who were diabetic or who had religious reasons began to eat again, but most kept up the strike. “Everybody got together, and a couple people decided that they were going to eat—but the rest got even more passionate,” said the detainee who spoke to the Prospect. In one sign that the strike is both taking place and having an effect, he said, GEO staff are now wearing masks when they come into his unit, though he says he sees staff take off the masks when they leave.

Around the country, ICE detainees have resorted to hunger strikes as one of the few tactics they can employ. Even before the pandemic’s spread inside detention centers and jails with which ICE contracts for beds, immigrants were protesting through hunger strikes. In January, Mother Jones reported that two Indian men who refused food and water for more than two months in protest were being subjected to forced feeding and hydration. English-speaking Cameroonian asylum seekers launched a hunger strike on March 3, writing in a statement that they faced “gross human rights violations” at the hands of ICE and one immigration judge. The advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants reports that at least 1,600 people have gone on hunger strikes in 20 different facilities since May of 2015.

From a source provided to the Prospect From a source provided to the Prospect

As conditions worsen and fears about the spread of coronavirus intensify, hunger strikes may be picking up as a strategy to draw attention to the detained immigrants’ plight. In late March, two dozen immigrants led a hunger strike in another Louisiana detention center. On April 16, another 97 ICE detainees announced that they were beginning a hunger strike in Otay Mesa Detention Center after four or five immigrants in the same pod showed symptoms of COVID-19, though none had been tested in the two weeks since they began showing symptoms. Otay Mesa, a for-profit detention center in San Diego run by CoreCivic, has more COVID-19 cases than any other detention center. On April 17, Mindy Pressman, a spokesperson for the activist group Otay Mesa Detention Resistance, said that another 70 people in H Pod of Otay Mesa had launched a hunger strike. She added that immigrants in Otay Mesa have reported that at one point they were forced to sign a waiver releasing CoreCivic from liability in order to get a mask. Pressman also reported that some detainees in Otay Mesa on a hunger strike were threatened with pepper spray if they continued to refuse to eat.

One Adelanto detainee told me that one of the reasons he was motivated to speak up was the lack of information. In particular, he said, there were detainees who didn’t speak English or Spanish, and struggled to communicate with staff to learn any updates about the pandemic.

The girlfriend of the Adelanto detainee told the Prospect that social distancing inside Adelanto is impossible—there are eight men to every 11-by-15-foot cell. She confirmed that the guards aren’t consistently wearing masks or gloves and that the GEO staff who prepare detainees’ food also don’t wear masks. Under normal circumstances, she said, “if someone is sick, it takes two days to see a nurse and another week to see a doctor.” She added that one immigrant, who didn’t speak English or Spanish, notified staff that he wasn’t feeling well, but it was ten hours before he was treated. At that point, he was unresponsive and Adelanto staff had to wheel him to treatment on a gurney. Another detainee confirmed this story.

Before the hunger strike began, she said, the detainees received no information for two weeks about the status of COVID-19 in Adelanto. “Really, all they want are answers,” she said. “They’re not asking for trouble, they’re asking for answers, and for protection.”

“My hope for these meetings,” said one immigrant, “is that they treat us like human beings.”