What Happens When Prisoners Go on Strike?

SAN FRANCISCO — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agreed yesterday to provide immediate medical care for two individuals being held in the California City Detention Facility, after the individuals filed their petition for emergency relief. The agreement was entered as a court order by the federal judge in San Francisco overseeing the case. Earlier this month, Yuri Roque Campos and Fernando Viera Reyes filed the motion seeking medical care on an emergency basis after medical staff at the facility ignored their worsening health issues. A medical expert previously warned in a sworn declaration that any delays in medical care would lead to suffering and even possible death. The duo are represented by the Prison Law Office, Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and are part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit challenging the abusive conditions in the California City Detention Facility, California’s largest immigration detention facility. Quotes from co-counsel are as follows: “While we’re relieved that Mr. Roque Campos and Mr. Viera Reyes will finally receive the medical care they urgently need, ICE should have never denied them adequate medical care in the first place,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “Many more people remain at the detention facility, facing the same inhumane conditions that put these two men’s lives in jeopardy. We will continue to fight to ensure all people detained at the California City Detention Facility receive the medical care that they urgently need.” “It should not take a team of lawyers and a federal judge’s attention to ensure that people in ICE’s custody have access to adequate medical care when facing life-threatening medical issues,” said Cody Harris, partner at Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP. “We are relieved that our motion spurred the government to act after months of neglect. We now turn our attention to ensuring that the conditions and medical care at California City comply with the law.” “Yuri Roque Campos and Fernando Viera Reyes should not have had to wait months to get the medical care ICE knew they needed the moment they arrived at the facility,” said Tess Borden, supervising staff attorney at the Prison Law Office. “We’re not stopping with this win. We’ll continue to work to ensure that they— and everyone detained at California City — receive the medical care they need and are entitled to under the law.” The order is online here.  

Tyler’s case shows how bias, fear, and discrimination drive wrongful convictions — and why confronting racial injustice in the legal system remains urgent today.

Invading privacy as well as "barking up the wrong tree"

NEW YORK - Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a lifelong organizer and activist for the safety and dignity of transgender people, sex workers, and the incarcerated, passed away yesterday, as confirmed by House of GG. The following is a statement from Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project: “Miss Major mothered the entire trans community through decades that spanned the Stonewall rebellion, the AIDS crisis, the ongoing criminalization of sex work, and the backlash to LGBTQ equality waged on the bodies of trans people over the last five years. She showed up in the streets, in state legislatures and city councils, and in court. But above all else, she provided the type of shelter that so many long for and lack in a world of familial, societal, and community rejection. “When Arkansas became the first state in the country to ban gender affirming medical care for trans adolescents in 2021, Miss Major, having moved to Little Rock to serve her southern trans family after Donald Trump was elected President in 2016, consistently came to court to mobilize in solidarity with the trans young people whose health care was being threatened. She ensured that we never lost touch with our history and that we believed in our power regardless of the outcome of any election, any legislative debate, or any court case. In her honor, we will continue the fight for trans justice, not just in the legal battles we fight but through the love and care we bring to our communities and to this work. Thank you, Miss Major.”