Hunger Strikes Sweep ICE Detention Centers Across the Country

Read our article Combat and Resist ICE Terror here.

Across the US, imprisoned immigrants have launched a wave of hunger and labor strikes against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), protesting medical neglect, abusive conditions, and indefinite detention.

The actions come as deaths in ICE custody reach record levels and reports of worsening conditions emerge from detention centers across the country. Eighteen people have died in ICE custody so far in 2026, following 31 deaths in 2025—the highest annual total recorded since 2005.

The strike wave began in July 2025 at Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, where detainees launched a 10-day hunger strike over unsanitary and dangerous conditions. Strike leader Rogelio Bolufé, a Cuban immigrant, lost mobility in his hand after being shackled by his wrists and ankles for up to 36 hours at a time. Detainees reported freezing temperatures and constant lighting, conditions resembling torture methods used by the CIA at Guantanamo Bay. Following the strike, Bolufé was transferred to a detention center in New Mexico.

Two months later, detainees at the ICE unit inside Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola launched a hunger strike. Participants demanded access to medical and mental healthcare, clean drinking water, hygiene products, and meetings with ICE officers to discuss concerns. Authorities responded by deploying riot police and placing strikers in solitary confinement.

The movement expanded further in 2026. On April 16, more than 100 detainees at Pennsylvania’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center began a hunger strike after multiple people became ill from facility food. Detainees reported that one man vomited, lost consciousness, and was denied medical attention.

Days later, several hundred detainees at Michigan’s North Lake Processing Center launched a hunger and labor strike over inadequate food, lack of medical care, and prolonged detention.

On April 28, Bolufé helped organize a hunger strike at New Mexico’s Torrance County Detention Facility. Detainees protested poor water quality, restrictions on legal resources, and constitutional violations. During the strike, detainees formed the Union of People Kidnapped by ICE (La Unión de Secuestrados por ICE, USI). ICE retaliated by transferring Bolufé to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington.

By May, Bolufé sent a communication from inside the Tacoma facility. More than 140 members of USI from Torrance and Tacoma had signed a letter denouncing “a system that has turned human suffering into a business.” Soon afterward, over 200 detainees in Tacoma joined another hunger strike. Hours after the action began, ICE retaliated by removing Bolufé and other strike leaders. Bolufé’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Strikes continued erupting throughout May. Detainees at California’s Desert View Annex launched a hunger strike to protest inadequate medical care, unsafe drinking water, and mold. In Texas, striking detainees at Prairieland Detention Center cited similar abuses and reported that one woman suffered a miscarriage after repeatedly being denied specialized care.

The struggle has reached a high point at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where more than 300 detainees have engaged in an ongoing hunger and labor strike. Outside the facility, demonstrators have mobilized daily in solidarity with the strikers. Through a series of public letters, detainees have described being “tortured physically and psychologically,” receiving food contaminated with worms and mold, beatings, chemical attacks in confined spaces, and pressure to sign deportation documents.

Image: Police mobilize in response to protests outside of Delaney Hall. Credit: The Worker.

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