Tacoma, WA — On Saturday night, Bhupinder Singh, a citizen of India and detained by Immigration Customs Service (ICE) to face civil removal proceedings at the infamous Northwest Detention Center private immigration detention center (NWDC) in Tacoma, owned and managed by GEO Group, contacted local immigrant rights organization La Resistencia to request that their plight be made public. He went on a hunger strike to demand his immediate release from detention by ICE. Upon learning of this situation on Sunday, six women also detained at NWDC decided to join the peaceful protest demanding release from detention as well.
Mr. Singh has been detained for almost 11 months, his case has been heard in the immigration court where he provided all the necessary evidence, but the government has delayed his decision for another 4 months. This decision can easily be heard on the outside. He and his community support group are ready to post bail, but no bond has been set for his release. The six women who joined the strike are Graciela Zamora, Leticia Graham, Maria Stoican, Annie Guerra, Diana Ramirez, and Brisa Hernandez Ramirez.
Mr. Singh has legal counsel and due to the fact that he has no family or friends committed to hosting him, this has been used as an obstacle to his release. Of the six women who joined the strike, only one has legal representation, and all have been detained from one to seven months. At least two of them have gone an entire month without receiving a visit from ICE or being given a hearing date.
“No one should go on strike for his release. I think we must be released or given a second chance. No human being should be in circumstances where there is bad food or bad circumstances like the ones we live in here at this place in the ICE detention center in Tacoma Washington. I think we have rights and our rights have been violated in this place,” Graciela Zamora said in a phone call to La Resistencia.
This latest hunger strike comes on the heels of at least four other strikes by people detained due to poor conditions, including inedible food, lack of medical care, dirty toilets, long periods of detention, among many other demands listed only this year. Denial of bond to Mr. Singh by immigration judges at NWDC is a common recurrence, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC which released a report last week on the granting of bonds by immigration judges to people detained nationwide and concludes that “the odds that immigration judges will grant bond motions for detained immigrants have varied this year so far from a low of just three percent at the Northwest Detention Center in the Washington state up to 45 percent at the Krome North Special Processing Center in Florida. This report, based on the latest case-by-case Immigration Court records, summarizes the results of more than 19,000 bond hearings covering the first nine months of fiscal year 2023 (through June).” NWDC has the lowest bail rate for detainees in the country.
La Resistencia will hold daily evening vigils starting Monday, July 24 at 7 p.m. right outside the facility every night until they are all released by ICE or decide to end their peaceful protest.
La Resistencia is a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color working to end immigration detention and stop deportations, and shut down the NWDC in Tacoma.
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