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ICE detainees go on hunger strike

WBUR reports on a hunger strike among local ICE detainees that began Friday.

They're housed in South Bay jail cells rented from the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, which denied there's any formal hunger strike going on.

In 2016, Sheriff Steve Tompkins said he'd look at canceling the department's ICE contract while running against an opponent who said he would definitely stop housing ICE detainees. Tompkins won re-election and maintained the contract.

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Comments

I'm suppose to think what about prisoner's starving themselves?

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Likely that they're being held in inhumane conditions. As cannabis becomes legal, private prisons need to fill their beds with new populations; enter undocumented brown people.

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Then maybe they should offer the ICE detainees some cannabis, to give them the munchies.

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Though I'd like to remind my fellow UHub commenters: ICE detainees participating in a hunger strike is an exercise of their free speech rights.

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They have to deal with inhumane conditions such as bad food and broken bathroom fixtures?

I bet they can't wait to get back to their countries and away from this Hellhole.

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Something tells me that they will fight tooth and nail to stay here. If they have broken our laws, they have no say as they are here illegally. Send them back home and prevent them from returning.

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From the BUR article:

"Rhode Island-based community groups Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance and the Fighting Against Natural Gas (FANG) Collective say they've been in contact with about 70 detainees at the Suffolk County House of Correction who are participating in a "hunger strike" that began Friday."

What's an anti-fracking group (FANG) have to do with this?

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Coalitions support one another.

https://www.facebook.com/events/794582150886047/ if you want to call.

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Who are you to question their political alliances over causes du jour?

You might need to pretend I had purple hair when I said that.

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Common sense and organization for action.

I don't keep different sets of wrenches to work on bikes and wonky appliances.

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Ending the contract is actually bad. The Feds are not going to release them just move them. A lot of these people have families then visiting them would probably be next to impossible especially if they get ship to Colorado or some place like that.

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The Franklin County jail in Greenfield is certified as an ICE detention facility, unlike this janky overflow space. It's run by a sheriff who seems to be a humane guy, too.

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Greenfield isn't Colorado. But it's still harder to visit -- the #1 bus doesn't go there.

And why's it any better for Franklin County to house ICE detainees, versus Suffolk?

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Greenfield isn't Colorado. But it's still harder to visit -- the #1 bus doesn't go there.

That's true, it isn't - but this is going on the assumption that the detainees housed in Suffolk are from the Boston area, which isn't a given by any means. ICE moves people around all the time, depending on the availability of beds (so they say - there are those who claim that they move detainees away from their home communities deliberately to increase isolation and put pressure on their families).

And why's it any better for Franklin County to house ICE detainees, versus Suffolk?

As stated in the original article, the conditions at the Suffolk County House of Correction appear to be shit - that's why the strike is happening. From what I hear, conditions at the Franklin County jail are not bad, and as I said, the sheriff appears to be a pretty humane guy.

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So improve the conditions. Other people will be there even if immigration detainees are moved out.

Maybe ICE does move detainees around -- have a cite?

Whether they do or not, keeping them out of all Boston-area jails means there's no chance of being near their families.

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Stuck in a metal steel box
No heat
Bathroom fixtures broken
No food
Plenty of vomit
Plus we have to pay it is called the MBTA

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Years ago, if cocky prisoners complained about the lack of luxuries, a wise old Desk Sergeant would remind them, "it's not the Ritz-Carlton."

Are any of the actual US citizens in custody on hunger strike? To come here illegally and uninvited, then complain about conditions that are apparently OK with those who belong here, is a new level of indignant. Let's see how long the strike lasts now that a federal court says they can't be force fed like geese.

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...which cop procedural did you see that Wise Old Desk Sergeant on?

Because we know it wasn't in real life.

To come here illegally and uninvited, then complain about conditions that are apparently OK with those who belong here, is a new level of indignant.

Well shucky darn, maybe you were a cop after all. Cops are notoriously ignorant of the law and the Constitution. People who want to claim asylum have the right to do so and can't be incarcerated for it, Fishy.

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First off, "hunger strike" should be in quotes exactly like in the article because those porky bastards are still eating at the prison canteen... also as it says in the article.

Millennials and Sean Penn ruined hunger strikes for everyone. Rolling hunger strikes, symbolic hunger strikes. Pansies.

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Hey Codpiece: Eat shit and die.

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I'm guessing you don't actually have any idea what a "prison canteen" is.

"Detainees said correction officers do not respond to complaints about the lack of proper plumbing and bathroom access, meals, and grievance procedures.

"“Whenever we request grievance forms, the C.O.s would tell us it wouldn't matter because it would just go in the trash,” detainees wrote in a letter sent to the FANG Collective."

So what do YOU think they should do -- you porky bastard?

https://www.masslive.com/boston/2019/02/more-than-70-people-detained-by-...

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So what do YOU think they should do -- you porky bastard?

Stop lying about the hunger strike.

It makes it clear they are lying about everything else.

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...who have low reading comprehension and a short attention span. "Not eating the prison cafeteria food because it's inedible slop strike" would lose you after three words.

It makes it clear they are lying about everything else.

Your ass it does. You are such a tool.

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And Bobby Sands didn't eat food from the canteen.

How about saying that they are "On Strike," then, when people ask what the strike entails, explain that they are boycotting the cafeteria? Conversely, it's a "cafeteria boycott."

Hunger strikes are messy things, and the implication is that one feels so strongly about whatever it is aggrieves them that they are willing to weaken themselves to the point of death. That's not what this is.

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Got an EU passport Irish or thirty ancestors back?

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My aunts and uncles live there, and as my surname is the same as a noted bomb making family in Ulster, the cross-border initiative my aunt did was a bit thorny at first.

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