Around two hundred detainees at Eloy Detention Center outside Tucson, AZ, reportedly launched a hunger strike on Saturday in protest of an inmate’s death inside the facility, which hunger strikers claim occurred under questionable circumstances. According to immigration rights advocates at the Puente Human Rights Movement, the strikers sat down in the exercise yard at 9:45 AM and declared their protest.
The death in question occurred on May 20 when José de Jesús Deniz-Sahagún, 31 a Mexican national was found “unresponsive” in his cell at Eloy, prompting the controversy and the protest. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials issued a press release after Deniz-Sahagún’s death, stating that the inmate had “no signs of apparent injury.”
SOUNDS OF A BEATING
However, according to immigration law expert, Daniel Kawalski, detainees who were part of the strike said guards beat the man badly prior to his death, and may have then locked him in solitary without care. Deniz-Sahagun had reportedly been in the immigration facility for only two days, after attempting to enter the US from Mexico on May 15. It was his third attempt to enter the U.S.
According to the Huffington Post, a related group of around 100 protesters demonstrated outside Eloy in support of the inmate/hunger protesters. One of the outside demonstrators, a woman named Sandra Ojeda, said that her husband, who is a detainee, plus some of the other detainees whom he spoken with, heard Deniz-Sahagun cry out for mercy.
The demonstrators also claim there was a second recent inmate death, although ICE has not released any such announcement.
According to advocates, the recent inmate death (or deaths) was not so much the cause of the protest as it was the final trigger that convinced detainees that they needed to take action. The deeper reasons, activists said, were poor conditions in the facility in general. They specifically named issues like getting needed medication and medical care, getting access to legal material, and the use of excessive force by guards.
WHAT HUNGER STRIKE?
On Sunday, in a slightly odd turn of events, ICE evidently issued a statement that there was no hunger strike, according to the Arizona Daily Independent.
Francisca Porchas, spokesperson for the Puente Movement, countered by stating, “While ICE’s official policy is to not acknowledge a hunger strike in its facilities until detainees have refused food for three days or more, people inside are risking their lives to fight against ongoing abuses and violence…” According to Porchas, strikers are not only known by the guards, but have been retaliated against.
Advocates say that hunger strikers are also calling on Vanita Gupta, the Assistant Attorney General for the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, to visit Eloy “…and launch an immediate investigation into the recent deaths and ongoing abuse and and excessive use of force at this facility.”
THE PRIVATE PRISON FACTOR
The Eloy Detention Center is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America , a publicly traded for profit company (NYSE:CXW). Although the companies stock is down slightly for the year to date, its dividend yield to its stockholders remains at 6.10 percent, which is considered high.
CCA operates four corrections facilities in the state of California, three of them in the San Diego area. One of the San Diego facilities. like Eloy, caters to ICE prisoners.
Photo from Puente Human Rights Movement
I guess if conditions are so bad, they could stay in Mexico and not try coming here illegally time after time. In Mexico, they have no shelter, food, sanitary conditions or medical care. They come here illegally, get detained and then protest the conditions of their detention facility? I’m completely confused.