HUNGER STRIKES
When people go on hunger strike in immigrant jails and prisons, it is a last resort. They are willing to put their bodies on the line for a shot at freedom.
As the Trump administration continues to expand its detention and deportation machine, particularly in Southern states like Louisiana and Mississippi, immigrants are being held in abusive conditions for longer than ever before. Freedom for Immigrants has documented at least 1,600 people on hunger strike at 20 detention facilities between May 2015 and early 2020.
In Louisiana alone, we have documented hunger strikes at five separate facilities in 2019. The majority of the hunger strikers were asylum seekers who cited lengthy periods of detention in inhumane conditions, and arbitrary denial of parole and bond as a motivation for their protest.
On November 1, 2019, five South Asian asylum seekers detained at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana began a hunger strike for freedom. Throughout the course of their strike, the men on hunger strike were subjected to force-feeding and forced-hydration.
“ I have never in my entire life lived like this inside four walls nor am I accustomed to living in imprisonment. I do not know how long my asylum case will take, which is why I want to fight my case from outside this prison [...] I only have one demand: I want freedom and I want to fight my case from outside.”
- A statement from one of the men on hunger strike
They faced multiple civil rights violations, ranging from medical neglect to retaliatory solitary confinement. In response, Freedom for Immigrants filed four complaints on their behalf with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL). We also engaged over 26,000 people to raise their voices and hold ICE accountable.
Two of the men on hunger strike were released to a Freedom for Immigrants’ sponsor, another was deported — without medical stabilization.
Read the redacted CRCL complaints:
A multi-individual complaint filed on January 16, 2020 called on ICE to use its prosecutorial discretion to release all five men. Each of them had formal sponsors in the United States committed to supporting and housing them while they fight their asylum case.
An individual complaint filed on January 16, 2020, submitted in collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights, addresses the significant delays in receiving critical medical records from ICE. Beginning in November, an volunteer with Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, an FFI member group, submitted multiple requests to ICE for these medical records, with the consent of the men engaging in hunger strikes. However, ICE has refused to release these records, in violation of its own policies. Without this critical information, independent physicians could not conduct an assessment of the medical treatment these men are receiving while in detention.
A multi-individual complaint filed on February 18, 2020 addresses the inappropriate and retaliatory use of solitary confinement against all of the five men on hunger strike. After over 100 days, the three men remaining in ICE custody continue to be segregated from the general population and are now each placed in solitary confinement with no access to other individuals or the outdoors. All of the men claim solitary confinement was in retaliation for their hunger strike.
An individual complaint filed on February 18, 2020 addresses the medical neglect, obstruction of independent medical evaluation, and withholding of information to legal counsel of the man who was deported on day 83 of his hunger strike. According to ICE’s own standards of care, individuals in their custody and their representatives are entitled to medical records, independent medical evaluation, and the provision of a medical stabilization plan upon release.