The hunger strike that immigrants detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) maintain as a protest against deportations in Tacoma, Washington, extended to ICE's detention center in Texas.
The strikers in both locations demand the suspension of deportation of undocumented immigrants, and demand better conditions for detainees in American prisons and detention centers.
The immigrants detained in Joe Corley, Texas, followed in the footsteps of the Tacoma detainees, who have kept their hunger strike for 13 days in search of ending the deportations which have disintegrated entire families. According to the press release emitted by the organization Grassroots Leadership on its website, the immigrants' demands are comprised by fundamental points that ask not only for dignified treatment of detainees, but ending double trials for previous cases and nutritional food for detainees, along with medical attention, a reduction in the cost of telephone calls in lower costs in the commissary.
Since last March 7, at least 750 people in an immigrant detention center in Washington declared themselves to be in a hunger strike to protest how they are treated.
A few days after declaring the strike, medics of the Northwest Detention Center evaluated the detainees' health, finding that 130 of them might be forced to eat to prevent their lives from being at risk.
In 2007, a decree established that there must be at least 34,000 detentions of undocumented immigrants per day, a mandate that lowered the rates of illegal immigration to the country, but which has been harshly criticized by defenders of immigrants' rights.
Through Grassroots Leadership, the Washington strikers sent messages to their colleagues in Texas, asking them not to give up and to continue to fight for their petitions.
"Mi name is Ramón Mendoza Pascual and I'm one of the strikeers at the detention center in Tacoma. The only thing I want to say to you is not to be afraid, to keep fighting so they can hear us and we can be free."
"Hello, my name is Jesús Gaspar Navarro. Do not despair, keep your efforts, we can do this, keep your efforts. God help you and God will keep you safe, since this is worth doing for our families. Just remember your family and this will give you strength. That is all I want to say to you, and we will continue, we can do this," are some of the messages.