This story contains references to suicide, self-harm and mental health crises that some readers may find distressing. Reader discretion is advised.
More than 100 immigrants detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center have been on a hunger strike for two weeks. On Monday, Democratic members of Congress visited the facility to speak with immigrant detainees and seek answers from ICE and GEO Group, the detention center's operator.
Reps. Judy Chu, Pete Aguilar and Jimmy Gomez were handed a petition signed by roughly 150 people inside Adelanto who detailed alleged poor conditions inside the center.
But immigrant rights groups said at a press conference on Wednesday that hunger strikers are now facing retaliation from guards and other officials at the facility.
“The hunger strike and the petition signed by 150 detained immigrants are the latest examples of people risking their own well-being just to have their voices heard,” said Esmeralda Santos with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice. “Their testimonies make clear that these facilities cannot be reformed, they must be shut down.”
According to Alvaro Huerta, an attorney with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (or ImmDef), hunger strikers are being punished for participating in the strike. It remains unclear whether the alleged retaliation is connected to the congressional visit and the petition.
"The people who are on hunger strike are being retaliated against by being put in basically solitary confinement," Huerta said. "They don't have access to talk to their families and they have very little access to going outside."
Huerta said hunger strikers were allegedly zip-tied, threatened with tear gas and transfers to other ICE facilities or put into solitary confinement.
“Transfers would put [hunger strikers] further away from their families and from their legal counsel,” he said. “It's to make conditions so horrible for people that they give up on their cases, they give up on any eligible relief that they may have…and it's intentional.”
DHS denies that a hunger strike is taking place at Adelanto. And GEO Group said in a statement to KVCR that they “categorically reject these baseless allegations”
“We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” reads a statement from a GEO Group spokesperson.
But hunger strikers shared in testimonies shared with the public and media that they’re not getting proper medical care, decent living conditions or edible food.
“Every day there is mistreatment inside this facility. The people who try to speak out are punished and threatened,” reads one testimony. “I have personally been called names. I have been called handicapped, told to go stand by the bus stop, and called an idiot. Staff make degrading comments and humiliate people. If two detainees want to go to the restroom together, they are told they have to hold hands and walk together.”
“The emotional distress we are all going through is unbelievable. There are a lot of people here talking about suicide or trying to take their own lives because they feel hopeless,” reads another testimony. “I know of one person who tried to cut his throat and another who tried to hang himself. Many people are struggling, and if it were not for faith, I do not think some detainees would make it.”
Hunger strikers did not provide their names out of fear of retaliation.
Chu, the Democratic congresswoman from Pasadena, said detainees told them they’re miserable.
“The food is not fit for anybody. The water is in these big jugs and oftentimes the water is brown or has hair in it,” she said during Monday’s press conference.
ImmDef and other immigrant rights groups shared that they’ll continue to address conditions inside Adelanto through litigation and other efforts. But Huerta also said that he hopes more people pay attention because things inside Adelanto—and other detention centers across California—are dire.
“These are people who are our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers,” said Huerta. “We should be demanding that our federal government answer for what's happening, especially when we hear about these horrible detention conditions that should be unacceptable in a place like the United States of America.”
