Inside an ICE Detention Center, Indian Detainees Continue Their Hunger Strike
Indian asylum seekers have been on a months-long hunger strike, protesting what they say has been a prolonged detention process
In El Paso, Texas, an eerily familiar story of negligent immigration custody is playing out — only this time, it’s asylum-seekers from India alleging mistreatment by the federal government.
Bruised, weak, desperate, and starving, seven Punjabi Indian asylum-seekers have been languishing in an El Paso immigration detention center for months. The men report being sent to solitary confinement, pushed and dragged along the floor, and subjected to a torturous two weeks of force-feeding as they engaged in an ongoing hunger strike. After “their spirits were broken,” according to one advocate in close contact with the asylum-seekers, five of the men recently resumed eating. Two of the men are continuing the strike.
The men have lost considerable weight and complain of constant cold. According to multiple accounts from advocates, attorneys, and family members, guards open outside doors to the bunk room and refuse to close them despite the objections of the detainees. One of the men has been suffering from back pain for over a week but hasn’t received medication…
