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The
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said there
had not been a hunger strike by residents of the Karnes County
Residential Center, about 51 miles (82 km) southeast of San
Antonio.
"On Aug. 2, a small group of fathers and their children (fewer
than 50 total) staged a brief sit-in and expressed their
concerns about their immigration cases," ICE said in a
statement. The residents "appreciated the information and
dispersed."
It was not immediately clear how many fathers were in the group.
The immigrants said they were being held at the detention center
with no notification from authorities on their immigration
status, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal
Services (RAICES) said.
Fathers had staged sit-ins, children were refusing to take part
in school activities, and some fathers had started a hunger
strike, RAICES spokeswoman Jennifer Falcon said on a conference
call with reporters on Thursday.
"The dads are on a hunger strike and they are refusing to obey
any directions from ICE and GEO guards," she said, referring to
private contractor GEO Group Inc <GEO.N> which runs the center.
The hunger strike was said to have begun on Wednesday.
GEO did not respond to a request for comment.
Asked later to respond to the ICE statement, Falcon told
Reuters: “There’s definitely a strike."
She added that the group had audio recordings of the fathers
saying they were on hunger strike.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made a hard-line stance on
immigration an integral part of his presidency and has promised
to keep immigrants targeted for deportation locked up "pending
the outcome of their removal proceedings."
Some 2,500 children were separated from their parents as part of
a "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal immigration that began
in early May. Many of them had crossed the U.S.-Mexican border
illegally, while others had sought asylum. The U.S. government
said last week it had reunited just over half of them.
Fathers at the Karnes center said they were misled into agreeing
to deportation as a condition of seeing their children again,
RAICES said. Others said they had not been given the opportunity
to apply for asylum.
A federal judge in San Diego indefinitely suspended deportations
last month.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay; editing by Bill Tarrant, Grant McCool,
Jason Neely)
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