Hunger strike continues at US immigration prison

Hundreds of detainees at an immigration detention center in the US state of Washington are still on a hunger strike in protest against “ongoing deportations” and “inhumane conditions” at the center.

The hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma started on Friday. According to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Department, at one point, 750 detainees were on hunger strike while activists said 1,200 detainees were refusing to eat.

As of Sunday afternoon, ICE says, nearly 330 of the center’s 1,300 detainees were still refusing meals.

“They are putting their bodies on the line to protest the on-going deportations overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the inhumane conditions at the for-profit detention center owned and operated by the GEO Corporation,” said an immigration activist website in a statement.

According to www.notonemoredeportation.com, which is run by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the hunger strikers are demanding attention to the unrelenting deportations, better food, better treatment, increased pay for work in the facility, which is currently $1 a day, lower commissary prices, and fundamental fairness and justice.

A comprehensive immigration reform bill has stalled in US Congress and immigration reformers accuse US President Barack Obama of being too aggressive on deportations as he waits for Congress to act.

Advocates are intensifying their pressure on Obama to scale back deportations of undocumented immigrants, saying the deportations are hurting immigrant families.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have also urged the Obama administration to halt deportations of most undocumented immigrants.