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.

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?

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?

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

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. https://www.kqed.org/news/11941677/until-we-drop-hunger-strike-enters-second-week-as-immigrants-in-ice-detention-protest-conditions
2. Ibid.
3. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/3/hunger-strike-at-ice-detention-facilities-protest-slavery
4. https://www.kqed.org/news/11943030/ice-aburptly-transfers-4-detainee-hunger-strikers-from-california-to-texas-sparking-fears-of-force-feeding

Courage California (formerly Courage Campaign) makes sure our democracy works for ALL of us by fighting corruption in California politics. We believe the solution lies in exposing and solving systemic problems through strategic organizing, enhancing coordination between progressive organizations, and mobilizing civic engagement from our communities, particularly voters of color, young voters, and self-identified progressives. The 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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