Hunger and Labour Strikes Demand Rights and Closing of All Detention Camps
Delaney Hall detention camp, June 2026
In May and June, there were several hunger/labour strikes by the people unjustly imprisoned in detention camps across the country, denouncing their horrific conditions and demanding that all these concentration camps be closed. Many held in the camps have lived in the U.S. for years. Most do not face any criminal charges. They are arbitrarily arrested and detained as ICE attempts to terrorize whole communities.
Women are playing a leading role in the strikes. There is great anger not only about the fraudulent detentions and conditions but that young girls detained, many unaccompanied minors, are being raped and are now pregnant. They are being shipped off to a detention camp in Texas to isolate them. But they, like the women and all those detained, refuse to be silent and are fighting back.
Solidarity
rally outside Delaney Hall detention camp in Newark, New Jersey
standing with the hunger and labour strikers, June 21, 2026
Strikes took place at the Delaney Hall detention camp in Newark, New Jersey. Another concentration camp in Tacoma, Washington has had nine strikes in 2026. In Alvarado, Texas, the people forced into this camp also went on strike, as did those in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania and Baldwin, Michigan. The strike in Adelanto, California began in May. The actions are giving expression to the stand that No Human Being Is Illegal! and the broad defiance characteristic of the battles for rights today.
The people involved not only refused to eat but also refused to work. Their labour is used to run these facilities, meaning even greater profits for the private prison monopolies that run the facilities. They are notorious and face numerous lawsuits against them for their rotten and inhumane conditions, yet the government continues to award them billion-dollar contracts.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), reporting on the situation at Delaney Hall where the hunger/labour strike lasted a month, referred to an open letter signed by 300 people. It brings to light the lawlessness of the administration as well as the lack of medical care, the spoiled food, lack of clean water and other inhumane conditions at the facility. These same demands were made at all the different hunger/labour strikes. Those on strike were supported from the outside with protests by their loved ones, community members and various legal and rights organizations.
The prison officials responded brutally, violently retaliating, including by imposing the torture of solitary confinement and punitive transfers. Both those detained inside and those protesting outside have been pepper sprayed and faced the use of force, including against members of Congress attempting to do oversight.
The ACLU wrote, "ICE has attempted to conceal what's going on inside -- initially denying health inspectors access, while families were blocked from seeing their loved ones through visitation." The organization added that those detained inside Delaney Hall were "demanding the release of medically vulnerable, elderly, pregnant and young people from detention, for immigration judges to meaningfully review their cases, for federal courts to review their habeas corpus petitions, and for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to end the practice of pressuring detained people to sign voluntary departure agreements or deportation documents." Everywhere the demand is to free all those being detained and hold government to account for the crimes committed.
The ACLU reports that "Five of the six facilities are operated by private prison corporations -- four by GEO Group alone, a company that collected over $1 billion in federal payments last year and whose former executive now serves as acting director of ICE. These strikes, and the record pace of deaths in custody -- 50 people dead since January 2025 -- are not anomalies. They are the entirely predictable consequence of an administration that has explicitly set out to detain up to 100,000 people, that has poured billions into expanding a system already rife with abuse, and that has treated accountability and oversight as obstacles to be overcome rather than guardrails to keep people safe. A system that grows this fast, with so much money and little to no accountability, doesn't just risk failure -- it guarantees it."
The widespread stand and demands, consistently part of the many demonstrations of all kinds taking place, are to Close the Detention Camps Now! Abolish ICE!
Delaney Hall
(With files from ACLU, Jersey Vindicator)
This article was published in
Volume 56 Number 5 - July 4, 2026
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/TML2026/Articles/TS56055.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca