Immigrants at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, New Jersey, have begun a hunger strike in protest of their ongoing detention in the midst of the nation’s public health crisis, saying in a public statement released by a coalition of New York area advocacy groups that “This coronavirus is getting out of control and if we were to be infected I am sure everyone would rather die on the outside with our families than in here.”
Gothamist reported on Thursday that as many as 10 people were participating in the strike at the time, with the public statement saying that detainees have been urging others to join them. “We are here on a civil matter—not criminal,” their statement said. “We shouldn’t have to stay locked up during an on processing deadly pandemic. I hope you will join us because there is power in numbers and this is a fight not only for our freedom but also for our health and safety.”
Numerous advocates have repeatedly warned this public health crisis would eventually hit ICE facilities, and that’s exactly what’s happened. The agency confirmed Thursday that at least two staffers have tested positive for coronavirus, one of them a medical staffer at a New Jersey facility. While ICE claims no detainees are currently confirmed positive, ProPublica said that “At a suburban Denver ICE facility, the Aurora Detention Center, 10 detainees have now been quarantined for potential exposure to the coronavirus.” However, Colorado Independent reported ICE “would not say whether the immigrants or anyone else in the detention facility has been tested for COVID-19.”
According to the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, people detained at the Hudson County Correctional Facility, the Orange County Jail, and the Bergen County Jail have also raised serious concerns about conditions. At Hudson, “One person reported that he has not been given soap, hand sanitizer, or other cleaning materials … another person reported to his wife that he was moved from his cell to a visibly dirty cell. No one will provide him with soap, hand sanitizer, and he was instructed to limit flushing the toilet, causing feces and urine to sit in the toilet and producing odor inside each cell.”
“At the Orange County Jail,” the groups continued, “several people have reported that they are still prohibited from having hand sanitizer as it is considered contraband. Corrections officers have access to hand sanitizer, and one person reported that a corrections officer was taunting other incarcerated people in the unit with it.” This is not just horrifically cruel and disgusting behavior: it’s helping endanger the lives of detained people whose only access to items that can help protect them against this public health crisis are what the detention facilities give them.
The number of frustrated immigrants who’ve been forced to launch hunger strikes in protest of their detention has continued to climb under the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies. NPR reported last year that at one Louisiana facility, up to 150 people were refusing to eat. In another hunger strike that year, ICE force-fed people at a Texas facility in a horrific process that left some with “nasal and rectal bleeding and vomiting.” Back at Essex, the protesters pleaded with the public to support their release. “We ask these of you who can have their family call the news and tell them what’s happening to push the issue of releasing us because after all we are not criminals,” they said.
“The information we’ve received that conditions at the Essex County Correctional Facility have deteriorated to such an extent that people incarcerated there have launched a hunger strike just underlines how deeply problematic ICE’s management of the situation is,” New York Immigrant Family Unity Project said. “We are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis. ICE has done nothing to rise to the occasion but instead continues to put the lives of hundreds of people at risk. For the health and safety of all, we demand the immediate release of all people currently in ICE custody and the halting of all arrests by ICE.”