Asylum Seekers’ Hunger Strike Reaches 60th Day
Eric Galatas, Public News Service – TX
EL PASO, Texas – Today marks Day 60 of a hunger strike by three
political refugees from India, detained for more than a year in an El
Paso Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
The policy of indefinite detention began under the Obama administration,
and has continued under President Donald Trump. Previously, most asylum
seekers were released.
Margaret Brown Vega, volunteer coordinator with the group “Advocate Visitors with Immigrants in Detention,” says the strikers all passed a test showing they have credible fear of violence if they return home.
“All of these guys have sponsors,” says Vega. “They don’t have any kind
of criminal history, so they pose no public threat. On that basis they
should be released, to be able to pursue their asylum claim outside of
detention.”
The hunger strike was called to draw attention to poor conditions at the
El Paso Service Processing Center, Vega says, and because of a deep
desire to be free, one way or another.
A report in The Guardian
revealed that three strikers were recently force-fed by ICE through
plastic naso-gastric tubes, a practice opposed by the American Medical
Association and seen as torture by United Nations officials.
ICE representatives maintain that force-feeding is necessary to keep the men alive, and is required by regulation.
The force-feedings have been challenged in federal court, and a judge is
now considering whether ICE has institutional alternatives. Vega
doesn’t believe the procedure is necessary to keep the men alive.
“These men will stop their hunger strike immediately if they’re
released,” says Vega. “That option is available to ICE – but instead,
every request for release for all of these men has been routinely denied
by ICE.”
ICE also force-fed at least six men from India this past December and
January, according to The Guardian report. Nearly 1,400 people who are
long-term detainees have gone on hunger strike since 2015, in 18
different facilities.
