At least 500 immigrants detained at the D. Ray James Folkston ICE processing center are participating in a mass hunger strike to protest their detention and the inhumane conditions at the facility in southeast Georgia.
“We are those who have been imprisoned for years, yet have never been accused of any crime. We are those who sought asylum in the first country to defend rights and freedom, yet found themselves deprived of both,” wrote Idris Makhmudoz, one of the 45 immigrants detained at the center who penned an open letter which was published by the Campaign to Shut Down the Folkston ICE Processing Center and obtained by The Emancipator, calling out the injustices at the center.
Significance. The protesters made a video, also released by the Campaign to Shut Down the Folkston ICE Processing Center, about the lengthy detentions and cruel conditions in the facility, including inadequate medical care, poor food, and a lack of adequate toilet facilities. Those signing the letter included people from Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
At their request, according to their representative, Samantha Hamilton, an organizer with the Campaign to Shut Down the Folkston ICE Processing Center, The Emancipator has opted to post their letter without redactions.
In the letter, the signatories say that immigrants at the facility are detained for an average of 20 months while still fighting their asylum cases and the right to stay permanently in the U.S.
Many have tried all legal pathways to legally stay in the U.S. and seek asylum from persecution in their home countries; however, they say immigration laws have prevented them from “the protections normally associated with liberty and due process.”
“We are told that because we are classified as ‘arriving aliens,’ the law treats us as if we are still standing outside the gate of the United States asking for permission to entry. Because of this legal classification, the protections normally associated with liberty and due process do not apply to us, at least in Georgia,” they wrote. “In practice, this creates a troubling reality. Innocent people can remain in civil detention for very long periods without any individualized finding that they are dangerous or likely to flee, which are actually the true reasons to detain immigrants.”
Mujtaba Qeyami, one of the detained immigrants in the video, claims the facility is still like a prison even though it was converted from a prison to an ICE processing center in 2017.
They say the facility serves “poor food and extremely limited medical care.”
“Honor, dignity, and respect mean nothing here. The guards insult us, humiliate us, threaten us, and punish us when they want,” Mohammadou Sal, another immigrant, said in the video.
Overlooked angle. Across the country, immigrants detained at other centers have protested through open letters, videos leaked onto social media, and hunger strikes to call attention to inhumane conditions in the ICE facilities and the lack of due process.
Immigrants detained at Delaney Hall, an ICE facility in New Jersey that has faced heavy public scrutiny, also went on a hunger strike earlier this year. The strike brought national attention to the cruel conditions immigrants inside the facility were forced to endure, including inedible and rotten food. Those who participated were initially met with retaliation from ICE officers in the facility, who prevented them from visiting with loved ones. The hunger strike lasted a month, and some of the organizers are just now being released.
As The Emancipator has previously reported, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has repeatedly claimed their detention centers have “higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”
The Emancipator recently investigated the claim by comparing the standards of care at three of the Bureau of Prisons’ most populated individual federal institutions and their associated work camps with the three most populated ICE detention centers.
We found DHS’ claims egregiously false.
Power structure. Alexey Kovalko and Alexander Borovkov, two people detained in the Folkston ICE processing center, compiled a nine-page document outlining the conditions in the facility.
The report includes: “no substantive medical assistance,” no access to a dentist, a lack of meaningful psychological support, no healthy food or clean water offered, inadequate resources to maintain hygiene, and limited access to fresh air and sunlight.
“Because the toilet is not isolated and is located inside the cell, during lockdown one must use it in the presence of another person. This significantly weighs on the psyche,” Kovalko and Borovkov wrote in their report.
The authors recalled a moment when a doctor in the facility highlighted how there is no comprehensive medical care for those in the facility.
“One of the doctors formulated this principle quite accurately, saying, to my face: ‘I have no obligation to treat you; the only thing that matters to me is that you don’t drop dead.’ This principle is reflected in everything related to medical care here,” Kovalko and Borovkov said.
The Emancipator reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and The GEO Group, which provides support services for the center, regarding these claims. They did not respond.
What experts say. Hamilton said the hunger strike began with 45 participants but soon grew to include hundreds.
“Our goal is to shut this facility down, and we hope one day to abolish ICE itself,” Hamilton said in an exclusive phone interview with The Emancipator.
