“I Feel Light Headed, Funky”: The Hunger Strike at Tacoma’s Immigrant Detention Center Continues
A group of about 50 activists gathered outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma on Tuesday night. From the sidewalk outside the prison’s gates, the demonstrators—wives, children, partners, and strangers—rallied in support of those inside.
About 415 detainees at NWDC, mostly undocumented immigrants picked up by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), had stopped eating to protest conditions at the facility, according to community organizers in touch with people participating in the hunger strike. It was day two without food.
The strike, which began on April 10, also came with a list of demands, including more nutritional food served in the cafeteria, reasonable commissary prices, speedier court proceedings, prompter medical care, and higher pay for prison labor. Demonstrators planned to camp outside the prison overnight.
“Nobody goes on a hunger strike because it’s fun, because they have nothing to do, or to call attention to themselves,” said Maru Mora Villalpando, an organizer for NWDC Resistance, told me during the rally.
The strike couldn’t be more timely. It comes as the Trump administration moves to loosen regulations on immigration detention centers, including regulations on medical care, suicide prevention and solitary confinement.
Villalpando said she wasn’t sure how long the hunger strike would last, but she was getting word via e-mails and phone calls from within the prison that more people were joining the effort.
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