Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter atMississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York TimesLocal Investigationsfellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.
About a hundred men held in an immigrant detention center in Natchez began a protest over the weekend against poor living conditions and spoiled, measly meals in the facility, according to those being held there. The protest began after facility staff put signs on residential unit doors saying they were conducting maintenance on the gas system, so detainees would not receive hot food or hot water until further notice. The electricity supply in the facility had also been getting interrupted at night, several detainees reported.
A visual representation of a two-person cell containing three beds at the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez. Credit: Bethany Atkinson
This protest in the Adams County Correctional Center comes after an unprecedented population spike and complaints of crowding in the facility, amid a national surge in arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Three weeks prior, nearly 70 detainees had submitted a petition to the warden, demanding an end to the practice of housing three people in two-person cells and making people sleep in beds on the floor, with many having to sleep with their heads close to the toilet bowls.
Representatives for CoreCivic did not respond to a request for explanation about the availability of hot food and hot water in time for publication. This story will be updated if they respond.
One detainee, Melvin Funez, reported Saturday evening that his fellow detainees were outside the cafeteria “striking” because of the “meager rations” that were being served. Lunch that day consisted of two flour tortillas and sliced bologna, several detainees reported.
“The protest was organized by the people in Pod C,” said another detainee, Johan Calderon, in Spanish. “We went out to eat with them, and when we saw the garbage food they were giving us, we stood by them and joined together to protest in solidarity.” Calderon said around 80 to 100 from two housing pods were protesting.
The protesting detainees placed their food on the floor “as a sign that it is inedible,” said another detainee. He, along with three others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.
Some detainees then began damaging the surrounding property, such as mail boxes, said another person who spoke on the condition of anonymity, though two detainees who participated maintained that the protest remained peaceful throughout.
Facility staff in riot gear dispersed the protest soon after. The facility’s special response team “sprayed” some detainees and threw others to the ground before entering the dorms and locking the doors, Funez said. Some said the substance that was sprayed was pepper spray, others said it was tear gas.
Three detainees said facility staff handed them dry cookies and ramen, well past midnight, as their dinner. Funez said it was “to make up for the lackluster food.”
“We accepted it, but that does not make up for everything we are going through here,” one detainee said.
The Guardian reported on Aug. 14 that a “mystery gas leak” in the same facility had led to the air conditioning being switched off amid a heat wave, which sickened many detainees who were then denied medical care. On Saturday, Calderon said the source of the gas leak still hadn’t been located.
The situation had not improved on Sunday. For breakfast, detainees received cereal and sour milk, said Eloisa Deorta, the wife of one detainee who, along with others, threw the milk in the garbage. Deorta said the last time she had come to the facility for visitation, her husband had been served “hot dogs that were green.” Andrei Zykov, a detainee from Russia, said the facility often serves food that “looks like meat,” but isn’t.
The written notice of the gas leak maintenance didn’t have information about when it would be fixed, Zykov said. “Just says, ‘thanks for cooperation.’”
