On July 11 it was reported by California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ) that about 50 detained individuals at Golden State Annex in McFarland have started a hunger strike. The reason for the strike is to protest against the worsening conditions, ongoing retaliation, prolonged detention, and the ending of access to free phone calls at the detention.
According to CCIJ, after they announced the re-launching of the hunger strike on July 1, several reports were made by individuals in the detention claiming there have been various forms of retaliation by prison guards and ICE. Including detainees’ access to yard time, not providing working air conditioning, cool water, or fans during heatwaves, and the cancellation of the legal speed dial pins that detainees can freely communicate with legal advocates.
Kern Sol News reached out to ICE to comment but they have yet to answer.
Individuals of the labor strikers at Golden State issued the following statement:
Time, experiences, and conditions in the Golden State Annex have given shape to a collective, peaceful, and voluntary work stoppage to raise awareness of ongoing issues. The goal is to reach a complete and entirely fair agreement with the administration and ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations San Francisco Field Office Director Moises Becerra to ensure our safety and health by meeting with us and addressing the following five demands:
- End the Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex ICE Detention Contracts by December 2024
- Freedom: Review our cases for release fairly
- End Solitary Confinement
- Stop Violating Your Own Standards: ensure adequate medical care, mental health care and food, and end retaliation
- Phone calls: stop charging us to call our families, lawyers and communities
Last month, Detention Watch Network reported that 16 facilities throughout the U.S. lost free phone access with plans to end the free phone program entirely.
Advocate leaders and people currently detained at Golden State said the ending of the free phone program came without warning.
“The free phone calls were how people were able to communicate with their families. Most people in detention are not represented. So contact with their families and otherwise using the free phone calls is extremely important to prepare their cases,” said CCIJ’s Senior Attorney Katie Kavanagh, who supervises their legal clinic at Golden State Annex.
Jeannie Parent, Coordinator for Kern Welcoming and Extending Solidarity to Immigrants said she visited Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex earlier this week. She learned that some immigrants who have been recently detained at the border and have no money were sent to the detentions and are not able to contact family members to let them know where they are.
“To me, it seems very unfair and discriminatory because the CDCR, the state prisons, have stopped charging inmates for calls like a year and a half ago,” Parent said.
Oscar Ernesto Lopez Santos, who has been detained at the Golden State Annex for the past 10 months, said since the sudden cancellation of the free phone program he knows several people who have given up on their cases and surrendered themselves for deportation.
“They said [they] have to have constant contact with their families,” Santos said.
Although Santos said he is fortunate that he has family in Kern County who puts money in his books he knows not everyone at Golden State is.
“I’ve had to use some of my own personal money on my phone account to let other people call their families for 2/3 minutes so they can get the satisfaction of speaking with their family and getting to hear their voice and all that. Because there are people here that have gone 2/3 weeks without even being able to call their family at all,” Santos said. “I’ve had one gentleman cry to me at 12 o’clock at night because his wife was sick in Mexico and he didn’t have any way of calling her.”
Santos spends about 180 to 200 dollars a week and 20 to 30 dollars a day to be able to help others and talk to his children, wife, and mother.
“It gets expensive and I count on these free phone calls,” Santos said.
Ever Starling Oropeza Paz has been detained at Golden State for 20 months and said he also knows people who are thinking about “throwing in the towel” and stop fighting their cases.
“It’s adding to the hardship that we already face here at the pain,” Paz said.
For more information and updates about the labor strike visit here.
