Five male Indian asylum seekers have reached the 90th day of a hunger strike at the La Salle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana.
According to American Bazaar, each of the men have formal sponsors in the US who have committed to housing and supporting them while they fight their asylum case. A petition to release the detainees while their asylum cases are processed states that the men have been force-fed and force-hydrated. The petition has garnered over 26,000 signatures.
“I have been visiting them for the past three months and have watched them slowly disappear as the days carry on,” Freedom for Immigrants volunteer Michelle Grafeo said. “ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is prepared to let them die. I, however, am not.”
Grafeo told American Bazaar that she met with two hunger strikers on Sunday and learned that three of the men are being held in isolation as punishment for not drinking Boost. She added that all five men are wheelchair bound and unable to get out of bed without assistance.
Freedom for Immigrants has filed complaints with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on behalf of the detainees, demanding that systemic civil rights violations the men have faced in ICE custody be addressed.
One complaint is that ICE is violating its own policy of giving people in detention the right to independent medical evaluation. According to licensed New Orleans physician Catherine Jones, staff at the LaSalle Detention Facility have denied repeated requests for accurate and updated medical records.
“This makes it impossible for us to have a clear understanding of the hunger strikers’ current medical conditions,” Jones said in a statement, “and completely negates their access to independent evaluations, which is especially crucial as they enter the critical time in their hunger strike when vital organ functioning begins to shut down.”
According to American Bazaar, medical professionals say vital organs may begin to fail after 75 days without adequate nutrition. Many asylum seekers from South Asia have previously resorted to hunger strikes to protest against the inhumane conditions in detention facilities.
A 2019 factsheet from civil rights organization SAALT states that patterns of abuse towards South Asians in American detention facilities include inadequate or non-existent language access, denial of religious accommodations, retaliatory solitary confinement, gross medical neglect, and high bond amounts.
WION reports that the five hunger strikers include four Hindus and one Sikh. According to American Bazaar, the detainees are seeking asylum for a variety of reasons and have differing legal situations.
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