The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
June 12, 2017

Asylum Seekers Launch Hunger Strike Inside GEO Group's Adelanto Detention Center
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In California, a group of undocumented Central American and Mexican
asylum seekers are launching a hunger strike inside the for-profit
Adelanto Detention Center this morning. Most of the hunger strikers were
part of a caravan of refugees who spent April and May crossing through
Mexico to reach the United States border to ask for asylum. They've been
incarcerated in the GEO Group-owned Adelanto Detention Center since
reaching the U.S. border. This is hunger striker Isaac Lopez Castillo.

Isaac Lopez Castillo: "The reasons for our hunger strike are, one, bail
is set at impossibly high levels; two, denial of the right to political
asylum; three, humiliation and discrimination toward the detained; four,
facilitation of the paperwork and processing of the detained; five, bad
food; six, incompetence of medical staff; seven, paperwork in English."



.