Source: Centro Legal
Detained immigrants at the Mesa Verde Detention Center in Bakersfield, CA, have begun a hunger strike in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter protests and the detained people at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, CA. The protestors made this joint statement: “We begin our protest in memory of our comrades George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Oscar Grant, and Tony McDade. Almost all of us have suffered through our country’s corrupt and racist criminal justice system before being pushed into the hands of ICE.”
The detainees are urging Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra to take immediate action in response to the threat of COVID-19 in ICE detention centers. Community demands include: “stop all transfers from California prisons and jails to ICE detention, lead independent investigation and hold detention centers and their for-profit operators accountable for putting lives at risk during the pandemic, stop all expansion of detention in California state.”
“ICE systematically deprives thousands of immigrants of liberty each day, with rampant medical neglect. Yet prison companies are shamefully turning a profit off of the suffering of community members — at the expense of community well-being and resources.”