[Pnews] Hunger Strike Continues: Detained Immigrants on Hunger Strike in NW Detention Center, in Solitary, and in NORCOR

[Prisoner News]

May 2, 2017

maru at latinoadvocacy.org
<mailto:maru at latinoadvocacy.org>

*Hunger Strike Continues Across State Lines: Detained Immigrants on 
Hunger Strike in Northwest Detention Center, in Solitary Confinement, 
and in NORCOR*


Tacoma, WA - The hunger strikes at the Northwest Detention Center have 
been ongoing since April 10th. In support of 70 women who began refusing 
meals on May Day (May 1st), NWDC Resistance is holding a solidarity 
encampment to show detainees that they are not alone.


As of today, NWDC Resistance received news that at least 9 women 
continue on hunger strike, women reported that ICE threatened with 
transfers, forced medical treatment and blocking access to commissary 
accounts where they can obtain hygiene items amongst other things.

Many more are participating in work stoppages and boycotting the 
commissary. At least one protester is in solitary confinement for 
resisting a retaliatory transfer to NORCOR, a jail in Oregon that 
contracts with ICE to hold immigrants.


ICE and GEO’s retaliatory tactics have backfired -- Washington state 
protests, inside and outside the NW Detention Center, have spread to 
Oregon’s NORCOR facility. Protesters have long targeted NORCOR, a rural 
jail that holds both youth and adults in addition to contracting with 
ICE, for its inhumane treatment. Detainees were told that if they did 
not like the horrifying conditions at NORCOR, they should sign voluntary 
deportation forms. NWDC Resistance confirms that at least 5 immigrant 
detainees have gone on hunger strike at the NORCOR facility in Oregon. 
Rural Organizing Project held a solidarity rally for immigrants on 
striking at NORCOR yesterday.


NWDC May Day Strikers’ Demands:

1. Stop violating our rights [this includes retaliation such as threats, 
solitary confinement, and transfers to NORCOR or other facilities]

2. Stop incarcerating us for so long

3. We want the right to speak to the judge and be listened to when we 
don’t have an attorney

4. We want our immigration hearings to happen faster


The hunger strikers are putting their lives on the line because 
immigrant detention is already a matter of life or death. NWDC 
Resistance has heard reports that a pregnant woman asked for medical 
attention when she felt ill and was concerned for her baby. She did not 
receive medical attention until too late. She was reportedly taken to 
the hospital after her baby died.

We say ¡ya basta! #Ni1Más #Not1More



For live updates, visithttps://www.facebook.com/NWDCResistance/.


###


NWDC Resistance is a volunteer community group that emerged to fight 
deportations in 2014 at the now-infamous Northwest Detention Center in 
Tacoma, WA as part of the #Not1More campaign, and supported people 
detained who organized hunger strikes asking for a halt to all 
deportations and better treatment and conditions.


Rural Organizing Project (ROP) is a statewide network of 60 
locally-based groups in rural and small town Oregon that work to promote 
human dignity: the belief in the equal worth of all people, the need for 
equal access to justice, and the right to self-determination. ROP has 
connected leaders and groups through collective action for inclusive 
democracy and shared organizing for racial, economic, and gender justice 
since 1992.


-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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