FOLKSTON, Ga. — A hunger strike inside the Folkston ICE Processing Center is stretching into another week, and immigration advocacy groups are preparing a Sunday rally outside the South Georgia detention site.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 13 people in custody are refusing meals. Relatives and organizers insist the true number is far larger and describe complaints about medical care, crowded housing and drinking water they call unsafe.
Family members of asylum seekers say their relatives entered the country seeking protection and later landed in detention after traffic stops in Florida. They describe Folkston as a former criminal prison setting and are asking the public to join protests, support advocacy groups and call elected officials.
Caravans from Perry in Middle Georgia and from Jacksonville across the Florida line are scheduled to roll into Folkston for an afternoon gathering on Sunday, Oct. 18. Statewide immigrant-rights networks say the strike is shining a light on conditions in Georgia detention beds that rarely draw headlines outside Charlton County.
Separately, federal defenders in Atlanta are fighting Marshals Service transfers of other pretrial detainees into South Georgia jails, including Irwin County, a sign of how strained the regional lockup network has become. ICE has not announced any policy change at Folkston in response to the strike, and lawyers say they are still collecting names of people who say they have stopped eating.
Local officials in Folkston have not scheduled a separate town meeting on the protest. Advocates say they want clearer medical staffing numbers and independent water testing posted for families waiting outside the fence.
Section: More Atlanta GA crime news
Filed under: Atlanta GA Public Safety News
