Attorney says immigrant detainees are on a hunger strike. ICE says that’s a lie
Hundreds of undocumented immigrants being held at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield began a hunger strike over concerns about the coronavirus, according to a couple of detainees and lawyers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, however, called those claims “completely false” and a tactic to exploit immigrant detainees.
The Bee on Saturday spoke with two detainees at the facility who said they joined the hunger strike Friday and stopped eating since lunch of that day.
The detainees said Mesa Verde is not taking proper measures to prevent or lower the risk of becoming infected with coronavirus at the facility.
“It is very stressful for us,” said Chamnan Sath, a detainee at the facility. “We don’t want to die here.”
The detainees said the movement was initiated on Thursday night by a women’s dorm.
Sath said he chose to participate in the strike because some detainees have been coughing, and new detainees brought into the facility say they are not being checked to see if they are possibly carrying the virus.
The facility, he said, has refused to install hand-sanitizers. They only get a bar of soap to wash their bodies.
Donovant Grant, who is also at Mesa Verde, said his main concern is that detainees have an immigration civil matter pending — not a criminal matter — so they should be released with a monitor to be in quarantine with their families.
“This is a big emotional toll on people,” Grant said, who has eight children.
There were 98 men in Grant’s dorm on Saturday.
Sometimes the detainees are so close, he said, that they are almost touching each other.
“We are all like 2 feet apart,” he said. “There’s not much space.”
Sath said they will continue the hunger strike until they see changes.
“The reason why I’m participating is because I want everyone’s voice to be heard,” he said. “We are still human beings.”
Grant said he will take part in the hunger strike for as long as he can hold.
“It’s a unity. It’s one voice,” he said. “We speak together.”
Detainees are not taking food but are drinking water.
However, ICE said no hunger strikes are happening at the facility.
“There is no hunger strike occurring at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Mesa Verde Detention Facility,” Jonathan C. Moor, a spokesman for ICE said in a statement sent Friday to The Bee. “This deceptive tactic exploits the plight of detainees and delegitimizes the integrity of media outlets that unwittingly report these lies as factual.
“No detainees have missed their facility provided meals, nor declared a hunger strike to staff.”
Moor added that false allegations of hunger strikes have been made in recent days at multiple locations across the country in “self-proclaimed ‘news releases,’ social media posts and anonymous tips to the media.”
“These lies appear to be a shameful, coordinated campaign against truth,” he said. “This disinformation campaign continues to be waged even after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has addressed these claims as false.
“This disgusting false propaganda being perpetrated by local so-called advocacy groups under the premise of helping detainees does nothing more than spread misinformation that incites unnecessary fear throughout the community and among detainees.”
Ambar Tovar, the directing attorney for the removal defense project at the United Farm Workers Foundation, said while attorneys with nonprofit organizations haven’t been inside the facility since mid-March, attorneys are in constant communication with their clients at the South Valley facility.
She estimated about 200 immigrant detainees are taking part in the hunger strike.
“This was a detainee-led movement and this is what they’re telling us is happening,” Tovar said. “This is not something advocacy groups organized for them to do or made up.
“We have no way of confirming first-hand because we’re not going into the facility (due to coronavirus concerns). But we are in constant communication with clients because we want to make sure they’re staying healthy and we’re also still actively working on their cases.”
Prisons and jails across the nation, including California, have been releasing inmates to lower the risk infections of the coronavirus.
The American Civil Liberties Union in late March filed a lawsuit on behalf of 13 plaintiffs who are being held at Mesa Verde and at the Yuba County Jail in Marysville. The lawsuit said the plaintiffs suffer from health issues that could put them at risk of more severe complications if they were to contract COVID-19.
The lead plaintiff Sofia Bahena Ortuño, 64, was released by ICE on the same day the lawsuit was filed, and this week a U.S. District Court judge ordered ICE to release four more plaintiffs.
Women in dorm B at Mesa Verde began the hunger strike, Tovar said, and men in dorm C followed suit. Each dorm houses about 100 detainees, she said.
It’s unknown if those in dorm A and D will join.
The UFW Foundation, other organizations and local activists like Valeria Valiz at 2 p.m. on Friday held a protest outside Mesa Verde in solidarity.
The activists said the male detainees were holding a sit-in at the facility’s recreational area. “We were at Mesa Verde, I can tell you it’s very real,” Valiz said during an interview Friday. “We had a drone. We have pictures.”
There’s a brick wall so people can’t see inside the facility, but Valiz said on Friday, those protesting outside the facility would chant “libertad” (which means freedom) and detainees behind the brick wall “would answer back saying “libertad.”
A drone was able to capture images of men in the facility’s recreational area of what Tovar and activists say was the sit-in.
Tovar said she hopes the hunger strike will prompt ICE not only to identify vulnerable detainees, but also to release them.
Moor, the spokesman for ICE, reiterated that “more than ever, those who spread these lies, do a damaging disservice to the individuals and communities they claim to represent.”
ICE said it respects the right of detainees to voice their opinions and does not retaliate against hunger strikers. The federal agency also said it explains to detainees the negative impacts of not eating.
The agency said it monitors the water and food intake of those identified as being on a hunger strike.
On Saturday, a California Committee for Immigrant Liberation, issued a statement responding to “ICE’s lies” of denying there was a hunger strike.
Mesa Verde is owned and operated by the for-profit entity GEO.
“The statement by ICE was provided less than a day after a hunger strike was announced in this facility,” the statement reads. “ICE and GEO have a stated policy in which a hunger strike is not recognized until nine consecutive meals are missed. This would normally require three days of missed meals to pass before a hunger strike is recognized.”
The policy, the statement says, allows the federal agency to “falsify” what is taking place.
“ICE’s track record of spreading lies is well documented, with their own spokesman resigning rather than continuing to spread falsehoods,” the statement reads. “In this case their furious rhetoric is aimed at breaking the solidarity between those inside the facility and the community, and seeks to distort the truth for the press that is paying attention.”
“Instead of dealing with the facts, ICE has chosen to lash out against detainees and the community. This is an indication of their desperation to hide the truth as the world watches.”
While ICE in its statement accused local organizations and activists of exploiting detainees, the federal agency contracts with private entities that pay detainees $1 for a day of work, according to the statement.
This story was originally published April 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Attorney says immigrant detainees are on a hunger strike. ICE says that’s a lie."
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