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News > World

Striking Immigrant Moms Forced to Eat or See Kids Confiscated

  • The Berks County Residential Center has been at the center of several scandals and its contract has not been renewed.

    The Berks County Residential Center has been at the center of several scandals and its contract has not been renewed. | Photo: Facebook / Vamos Juntos

Published 25 August 2016
Opinion

The mothers will eat a meal a day and resume their hunger strike next week to demand their release.

After 16 days on hunger strike, 22 immigrant mothers detained in Pennsylvania said they were intimidated and will pause their strike until next week if the center does not meet their demands.

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In a letter to reporters Tuesday, the mothers wrote that immigration officials told them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, would take away their children if their health deteriorated.

Two of them were released since they began their strike, reported News Works, but ICE could not confirm the releases. Many of the others have family waiting to accommodate them while their cases are being processed.

The women, some of whom have completed a year at the Berks County Residential Center, have visibly lost weight, according to lawyers who visited them during their strike. One said she was concerned about the conditions at the center, which “compromises a child’s developing sense of identity and security in the world around them.” The center defended the living conditions on Thursday, and ICE responded to media saying that it pays close attention to ensuring proper health and safety conditions.

For now, the women are eating one meal a day, but their children are still desperate, some of them suicidal.

“They have this attitude that ‘either we’re going to die here or die there,’ and it terrifies me,” said their lawyer Bridget Cambria.

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“We risked our own lives and those of our children so we could arrive on safe ground,” said the women in an open letter sent to Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson on Wednesday.

Johnson had said that he would ensure that no one stays in detention longer than 20 days, but the signees point out that those serving the least amount of time have remained almost 300 days.

The center, run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is notorious in the area, with one of the guards charged with raping a 19-year-old Honduran refugee and several children not receiving medical attention for days. Pennsylvania refused to renew its license last year, but while it was meant to expire in February, the center appealed.

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