Law360 (February 24, 2023, 7:16 PM EST) -- Staff at two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in California regularly retaliated against migrant detainees for engaging in hunger strikes, including by denying them basic hygiene supplies and threatening solitary confinement, a new lawsuit alleges.
The proposed class action filed in California's Northern District on Thursday claims that approximately 82 migrants currently detained at the Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex ICE facilities — operated by the GEO Group Inc., a private prison company — began a hunger strike earlier this month to protest poor facility conditions and mistreatment. The plaintiffs are seeking to end the retaliation on First Amendment grounds.
"They have been subjected to egregious retaliation by ICE and GEO, including having family visits cut off, having the dorms deliberately set to cold temperatures, being taunted and harassed, threatened with being put in solitary confinement — all manner of retaliation," said Jenny Zhao, senior staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the litigation.
The complaint — which states that hunger strikes are a First Amendment-protected activity, making the retaliatory practices a violation of the U.S. Constitution — claims the conditions the detainees were initially protesting included "being served expired food, inadequate medical care, moldy showers, lack of access to hygienic clothes and footwear, a pattern of...
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