ACLU and MIRC Call on Congress to Require an Independent Investigation into ICE’s North Lake Detention Center Following Reports of a Hunger Strike and Dangerously Inadequate Medical Conditions

The ACLU of Michigan (ACLU) and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) call on Congress to require an independent investigation into the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) North Lake Processing Facility, where people locked up launched a hunger strike on Monday. The hunger strike is reportedly in protest of poor conditions, including a lack of medical care, as well as prolonged detention. The ACLU and MIRC have also been in contact with numerous people detained at North Lake who described similar inhumane conditions.

In the 10 months since North Lake opened as an ICE detention center, people held there have reported to the ACLU and MIRC that they have been denied both urgent and routine medical care. This includes life-threatening delays and denials of care, lack of follow-up care after hospitalization, and denial of prescription drugs or requiring payment in order to receive necessary medications. Some have described witnessing people in severe medical distress or collapsing and having to beg staff, sometimes for hours, to provide medical care. Last December, 56-year-old Nenko Stanev Gantchev died while in detention at North Lake, which some reports say is due to ICE’s failure to properly treat his diabetes. People have also reported receiving spoiled or insufficient amounts of food.

“This is all driven by the Trump administration’s cruel and xenophobic mass deportation agenda of rounding up and warehousing longtime members of our communities, forcing them to either endure indefinite detention under inhumane conditions or, out of desperation, to make the devastating choice to leave their families and communities behind, ” said Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan. “We opposed the reopening of North Lake precisely because we feared that what is now happening would happen. North Lake’s conditions and practices fall dangerously short of both constitutional mandates and federal standards, and we are calling for an immediate independent investigation.”

North Lake is owned and operated by GEO Group, a private prison company that has been repeatedly sued based on reports of neglect and abuse of the people it detains. When GEO previously operated North Lake as a prison,, there were six reported hunger strikes by incarcerated individuals over conditions including inadequate medical care and insufficient food.

ACLU and MIRC call on Congress to enforce their oversight and appropriations authorities by:

• Requiring healthcare experts to conduct an independent medical audit of North Lake—and other similarly dangerous detention centers around the country—as a condition for any appropriated funds to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The audit must include confidential interviews with people detained and access to medical records.

• Conducting an oversight visit to the North Lake detention center as soon as possible and speaking with detained individuals, especially those who are participating in the hunger strikes to ensure retaliatory actions such as force-feeding, segregation, and transfers to another facility do not take place. Past Congressional visits have been critical in shedding light on facility conditions.

• Sending a formal inquiry to ICE about the conditions at North Lake and demanding a response which should include a plan of action to improve conditions in a reasonable amount of time.

The hunger strikers at North Lake are not just protesting inhumane conditions, but also the fact that people—many of whom have lived here for decades and have U.S. citizen families—are being held for months without any consideration of their individual circumstances. The vast majority of people arrested by ICE in Michigan do not have criminal records. Additionally, federal judges in Michigan and across the country are finding that the people in immigration detention are routinely being held unlawfully without bond. If they do finally get a hearing, immigration judges are denying them bond at unprecedented rates. The result is the continued detention of people who would otherwise be at home with loved ones in their communities. While the reason for the sudden high rate of bond denials is unknown, immigration judges whom the administration views as insufficiently harsh on immigrants are being fired at alarming rates.

“This sudden, unexplained spike in bond denial rates raises questions about whether noncitizens are getting fair hearings,” said Miriam Aukerman, the ACLU’s Director of Strategic Litigation. “It is also extremely alarming that immigration judges are being fired apparently for failing to conform to the Trump administration’s inhumane mass deportation agenda. We fear that these judges, who are under the control of the executive branch, may now be forced to choose between upholding their duty to review the evidence and follow the law or face termination.”

MIRC Director Susan Reed said, “Immigration detention in Michigan has increased sevenfold in the past year.  People have been arrested at hearings when the only legal purpose of detention is to ensure people appear at hearings.  Detained people seeking legal assistance share their stories with us every day, and we are gravely concerned about the safety and wellbeing of the people held by the government.  We urge immediate action to improve conditions and release the many who are detained needlessly.”