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April 13, 2017

Hunger Strike Grows at Washington State Immigration Jail
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In Washington state, immigrant rights groups say a hunger strike at an
ICE jail grew to more than 750 people Wednesday, or about half the
population of the for-profit detention center in Tacoma. The hunger
strikers are demanding better food and conditions, and are protesting
the fact they are paid only $1 a day for jail work assignments. This is
an audio recording of hunger striker Jonathan Rodriguez Guzman.

Jonathan Rodriguez Guzman: "We don't have contact visits here. So that's
one of the things that we wanted to point out to them. The food, to give
us better food, better medical care. Or we shouldn't be held indoors 23
hours. We should be able to get sun more than just one hour."

ICE policy dictates that hunger strikers can face force-feeding after
refusing meals for 72 hours. It's not clear if ICE will impose the
policy today, when some of the protesters will have been on hunger
strike for three days.


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