Friend,

We need to talk about the infuriating situation at two for-profit ICE
detention centers in the Central Valley, where dozens of detainees are on
a weeks-long hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions.

The hunger strikers are protesting treatment by the GEO Group, the
for-profit corporation making millions of dollars by running these
centers. They pay people in their custody $1 a day -- less than 1% of CA
minimum wage -- to do janitorial work such as scrubbing bathrooms, heavy
loads of laundry, and maintaining the facilities so that the GEO Group
doesn’t have to employ and pay a protected workforce.(1)

Not only that, but the centers are serving the detainees expired, spoiled,
and nonsustaining food, making them ill. If the immigrants want nutritious
food, they have to buy it from the commissary at exorbitant prices, giving
back their measly $1 to the GEO Group.(2)

The hunger strikers need your help. Medical professionals have joined the
MV-GSA Hunger Strike Support Committee asking for intervention from the
Kern County office of the California Department of Public Health, but so
far the DPH has been silent.

Courage California members can change that.

[ [link removed] ]Will you take 5 minutes to call the Kern County office of the
California Department of Public Health and ask them to respond to the dire
situation in the Golden State Annex and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing
Center?

[ [link removed] ]CALL NOW

Detained immigrants awaiting their court dates are being gravely
mistreated in order to turn a profit for the GEO Group. The company has
made at least $26.7 million from exploiting detained people instead of
hiring workers.(3)

And the strikers who have fought back are being punished with inhumane
solitary confinement. Several have been transferred to El Paso, Texas,
more than a thousand miles from their families.(4)

Eighty-four people started the hunger strike, but the number has dwindled
as the weeks drag on and the violence increases. We need to help them as
they fight for the dignity and respect they deserve.

ICE has a history of letting hunger strikers die, and the GEO Group is
threatening more unhealthy conditions. A few years ago, the California
legislature passed a law, AB 263, that gives the Department of Public
Health the ability to protect the health and safety of all California
residents, including those in ICE facilities, and these hunger strikers
need the DPH to step in now.

Courage California’s 1.4 million membership has the power to change these
strikers' lives, if we’re willing to take just a few minutes to call the
DPH. Can we count on your support?

[ [link removed] ]Click here to call the California Department of Public Health. We’ll
provide you a script, and it will take only a few minutes.

[ [link removed] ]SUPPORT THIS CAMPAIGN

Yours in the fight for justice,

Angela along with Annie, Irene, Isidra, Lindsay, Mai, Mai, and Scottie
(and the rest of the Courage team)

Footnotes:
1.
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2. Ibid.
3.
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4.
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Courage California Institute is the educational arm of the Courage California family of organizations. Our mission is to defend and extend human rights through innovative leadership-development training, strategic research and public-education.

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