Failure to Respond to Medical Release Requests of Detained Men on Hunger Strike and Delays of Critical Medical Records

As five South Asian men reached the 75th day of a hunger strike in the GEO Group-operated LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana, where they have been subjected to the tortuous procedure of forced-hydration and force-feeding, Freedom for Immigrants filed a pair of complaints with the  Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) on behalf of the five men. The first CRCL complaint calls on ICE to use its prosecutorial discretion to release all five men. Each of them have formal sponsors in the United States committed to supporting and housing them while they fight their asylum case. The second complaint, submitted in collaboration with Physicians for Human Rights, addresses the significant delays in receiving critical medical records from ICE. Beginning in November, an FFI affiliated volunteer submitted multiple requests to ICE for these records, with the consent of the men engaging in hunger strikes. However, ICE has refused to release these records. Without this critical information, independent physicians cannot conduct an assessment of the medical treatment these men are receiving while in detention.