Immigrant Detainees On Hunger Strike Threatened With Force Feeding, Says Lawyer

Northwest Public Radio reported on Tuesday that as immigrant detainees facing deportation proceedings in a Tacoma, Wa. detention center entered their fifth day of a hunger strike, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have threatened to force-feed them, according to Sandy Restrepo, an immigration attorney who is representing about fifty of the detainees. Restrepo told MSNBC that officials at the Northwest Detention Center had also threatened detainees who were seeking asylum that their cases would be denied if they kept up the strike.

As many as 750 of the 1,300 detainees at the center, one of the nation’s largest, have joined the hunger strike at one time or another, according to the Associated Press. Officials estimated that about 150 didn’t eat lunch on Monday. They’ve staged the strike in order to protest continued deportations of undocumented immigrants as well as what they describe as exploitative working conditions in the center, which is owned by prison operator GEO Group. Inmates are reportedly paid $1 a day to perform a variety of services.

ICE officials told Northwest Public Radio they were confirming on Tuesday which detainees had not eaten for 72 hours, at which point they would be moved to a separate part of the center for further medical evaluation. Restrepo told the station that 25 strike leaders have already been isolated. She added that her clients had informed her that guards had changed uniforms resembling those typically worn in preparation for riots. “The uniforms are black, which is not customary for them to be dressed in all black and armed," she said. “And it was a change for the detainees to see the guards in such gear because for them it was very threatening.”