| Dear Friend, For years, the GEO Group -- a for-profit prison company -- has abused immigrant detainees at the Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex ICE detention centers. The GEO Group uses the detainees for forced labor, including janitorial and facilities maintenance, paying them only $1 a day -- money they end up having to use for food and phone calls to family. And those who refuse are subject to harassment and solitary confinement. Several of the loudest objectors have been transferred to facilities more than a thousand miles away, inaccessible to their attorneys and families.(1) In February, 84 of the immigrants began a hunger strike to protest the conditions at the centers, and now five of them have filed a class-action lawsuit against ICE and the GEO Group.(2) The MV-GSA Hunger Strike Support Committee is working to provide stipends and legal services for the strikers, and we’re putting pressure on the Department of Public Health to investigate the facilities. Can we count on you to keep this critical work going and stop the abuse at the GEO Group ICE centers?
The people in ICE’s custody are awaiting court dates for immigration hearings, and many of them wait a year or more. The GEO Group is taking advantage of a broken immigration system to turn a huge profit -- $26.7 million on these two facilities alone.(3) The corporation makes these profits not only by using detainees to perform work instead of hiring a protected staff of janitors, launderers, and facilities managers, but also by serving spoiled, expired food. Then the people in the centers are compelled to buy overpriced food from the commissary, putting more money in the GEO Group’s pockets.(4) These hunger strikers are fighting for their dignity and the right to refuse to perform slave labor for the GEO Group, and in return, the guards at the facilities are harassing them and the GEO Group is threatening to force-feed them, against medical advice.(5) Courage California members can ensure that the spotlight stays on this abuse until the Department of Public Health steps in. And 70% of your donation will go directly to support the hunger strikers in their quest for justice. Will you donate today? Thanks for your critical support. –Irene, along with Angela, Annie, Isidra, Lindsay, Mai, Mai, and Scottie (and the rest of the Courage team)
PS: Courage California is fighting for equity and justice across the state and country. Will you become a monthly donor and help sustain our work? Donations go to support all of Courage California's work for a more progressive California and country. Follow us now on Facebook or Twitter! Footnotes:  |
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