Several detainees went on a hunger strike Monday for quality dental care, warm meals and better treatment of family visitors at the Adelanto Correctional Facility in Adelanto, California, according to ThinkProgress.
The detention center, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is privately owned by The GEO Group and contracted with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for about a $13 million profit per year. The GEO Group has a history of inadequate care and of violating human rights, despite a policy that claims otherwise.
“We are detainees and not prisoners,” the strikers said in their list of grievances obtained by ThinkProgress.
The 20 imprisoned men are immigrants from various countries, mostly in Central America who were caught living in the United States without legal documentation and now face deportation. They said the demands are based on their “rights as humans under the law.”
According to their hand-written manifesto, dentists were opting to pull teeth out rather than perform root canals, fillings and other procedures, and the detainees received cold slices of turkey instead of full meals.
The detainees also complained that they do not have access to proper medical care and are subject to unsanitary kitchen conditions, disrespectful staff and one-sided or ineffective grievance procedures.
With over 11 million undocumented immigrants in the Unites States, immigration reform is needed now more than ever.
Nearly a quarter of all people imprisoned in the U.S. are immigrants, legal or otherwise, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, while undocumented immigrants only account for 3.5 percent of the total population.
Yet immigration reform in Washington is at a standstill.
New House Speaker Paul Ryan said he does not trust Obama and that no more immigration reform will go through until Obama is out of office. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Ryan previously voted in favor of immigration reform, but is now trying to appeal to far-right Republicans.
In California, undocumented immigrants have access to in-state tuition, driver’s licenses and healthcare. It is also illegal to call immigrants “aliens” in the labor code.
Can multi-billion dollar corporations who profit more for each inmate they house be trusted to uphold similar standards of respect for human dignity?
The rest of the country looks to California to lead the way on policies like immigration, so it is important that the state does not allow profits from a private prison to surpass human rights as a top priority.
Imagine our grandparents or great-grandparents who immigrated to the United States of America stepping off the boat to find millions of immigrants locked in prisons around the country. How would we explain ourselves to them?