Hundreds of detainees at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) [official website] in Tacoma, Washington began a hunger strike on Monday [NWDC Resistance press release]. According to NWDC Resistance [advocacy website], an advocacy group for undocumented immigrants, prior to the beginning of the hunger strike a demand letter was circulated through the facility that included demands [text, PDF] for more expedited hearings, improved quality of food, improved access to medical care, and lowering of exorbitant commissary prices. The facility has been the object of protests and hunger strikes before. In 2014 a hunger strike involving more than 1,000 people started at the NWDC and spread to other facilities throughout the US for more than 55 days.

Immigration, deportation, and the detention of immigrants has been a matter of national controversy for years and has been a particular focus of US President Donald Trump. The issue has culminated in lawsuits challenging [JURIST report] Trump’s controversial executive orders affecting migrants. Last month, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a report finding that a significant portion of federal law enforcement resources were directed to immigration-related offenses [JURIST report]. The analysis showed that half of all federal arrests in 2014 were related to immigration, with 61 percent of them occurring in five districts along US-Mexico border. In January, seven days after his inauguration, Trump issued an immigration-related executive order, which limited migration from seven Muslim-majority countries, among other changes. A lower court order blocking enforcement of that order was upheld [JURIST report] in February by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. An amended executive order, issued in early March, was also blocked by district courts in Hawaii and Maryland [JURIST report]. Additional challenges to the revised policy are pending, including one brought by Washington and joined [JURIST report] by California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon. These policies have been criticized as part of a larger overhaul of the country’s approach to immigration undertaken by the new administration, largely departing [JURIST op-ed] from the policies of other post-WWII presidents.