ICE DETAINEES STAGING PARTIAL HUNGER STRIKE
About 70 jailed in South Bay facility bemoan conditions
ICE detainees in Boston say they’re on a hunger strike, citing a range of grievances including “sarcastic remarks” from guards, bland food, insufficient bathroom breaks and “weird”-sounding TVs — though some are eating food bought from the canteen.
The detainees — held at Suffolk County House of Correction while awaiting deportation and immigration hearings — wrote in a Feb. 10 letter to the sheriff ’s office and ICE: “Food is always bad. There is no energy. Most of the time, the food is bland and there is no condiment such as salt and pepper. The food portion is very unbalanced. One tray might have a very small portion while others might have a very ridiculously big portion. There is no fruit.”
The list also has complaints such as, “When buzzed, the C.O. takes too long to open the door,” and that three TVs “make weird sounds. It’s hard to watch them without getting annoyed.”
Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
But Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who also houses detainees for ICE in his jail, was dismissive of the detainees’ gripes.
“If you want freedoms, don’t break the law. People who aren’t in jail can go out and get their TV fixed,” said Hodgson, a Trump ally who’s outspoken against illegal immigration. “They could waive their hearings and go right back to their countries.”
The 70 or so detainees, who are being held pending immigration legal action as they’re suspected to be in the country illegally, continued what they called a hunger strike into a fourth day on Monday.
The first several demands involve a push to get two correctional officers transferred away from the ICE section because of “abusive treatment,” which the detainees define as “mockery and sarcastic remarks,”
expletives and telling complainers to “deal with it,” according to the letter, provided by the Rhode Island leftist groups AMOR and FANG Collective, which are helping the detainees. Many of the other demands focus on improving bathroom fixtures and practices.
“It’s a lot of nonsense,” said Hodgson, who has had run-ins with FANG, whose members showed up outside his house on Thanksgiving to protest him. “The people on detainers actually have higher standards for jails.”
Arely Diaz, who works for the Rhode Island groups, said they believe all of the detainees are “rejecting food from the institution” but some are eating food bought from the canteen in the jail.
Boston immigration attorney Jeffrey Rubin said his office represents several people detained in the Boston facility commonly known as South Bay. He said detainees are regularly held for months to even years in the “sub-par” jail. Rubin said he believes jail officials are following the lead of President Trump’s hard-line immigration rhetoric.
“This might just be a trickle down effect, like, ‘We know how our president feels, so why should we on this level feel any differently?'” Rubin said. “Compassion and decency are out the window.”