Judge Gee also found that facilities like Berks that hold children should not be “secured” in the same way that prisons are. Until recently Berks was not secured, meaning that technically, the women and children could have walked out of the center. However, according to Almiron, “if they were to leave the premises, they would be charged as fugitives and then be taken to federal prison.” Almiron was herself arrested for going up to the women during a protest and hugging them over a fence. A facility that is operating without a license and slated for closure manages to retain legitimacy while those on the inside and outside are criminalized. In recent months authorities built a fence around Berks, qualifying it as a “secured” facility in direct violation of the Flores settlement and Gee’s ruling. Moreover, Almiron was told by some of the women that this week prison officials also locked the doors to the outside detainment area until further notice, citing danger from the summer heat. The desperate mothers have been on a liquid diet for more than a week now as part of their hunger strike. It is not clear how much longer they can keep up or how the state or federal government will respond. Perhaps they will force-feed the women, as hunger-striking Guantanamo detainees were. Perhaps the women will “leave in a coffin,” as Almiron told me some women said they would do if they were not freed. The Obama administration has purposely chosen to take up the practice of family detention. As I reported last year for Truthdig, undocumented families had been allowed to stay with relatives in the U.S. while their applications were reviewed and processed, but this president revived a Bush-era practice of family detention for no discernable reason other than to appear tough on immigration enforcement. The incarceration of mothers and children at Berks and elsewhere is a stain on the U.S. Just as Europe’s poor treatment of Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees has been a measure of that continent’s immorality, the abuse of Central American women and children is a testament to American cruelty. The hunger strike is a last-ditch, desperate attempt by vulnerable women to call for justice and freedom for themselves and their children. Your support matters…

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#central america#hunger strike#immigration#Sonali Kolhatkar#td-original#undocumented immigrants