Detainees at North Lake Processing Facility, the 1,800-bed immigration detention center in Baldwin, started a hunger strike Monday, according to detainees inside the facility and advocates in Michigan.
Those on a hunger strike are protesting long stays at the facility, slow communication from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some of the living conditions at the facility.
There are around 1,400 detainees at the facility, making it the largest in the Midwest.
“I don’t know why I’m sitting here, I want deportation,” said Ahmad Alnajdawi, who is from Jordan and was detained in Michigan. He is participating in the hunger strike, along with 300 of the men in his unit, he said.
“I’m not fighting my case, I’m not applying for bond, I’m waiving my right for asylum, appeal, for everything… I just want to go back to my home.” He hopes to rejoin his wife, who is pregnant and expecting a baby in May.
On Tuesday afternoon, around 30 people gathered outside North Lake, banging drums and chanting in support of the strike, hoping detainees could hear them.
“Everyone who’s in here, their humanity is being eroded,” said Erin Madden Reed, who drove over from Ludington. “The people who work here, the people who are being held here unlawfully. The further we get down that road, the scarier it will get.”
Though many detainees at North Lake were released earlier this year through habeas corpus petitions — meaning, a judge ruled they were unlawfully detained — federal immigration judges have now been denying the majority of bond petitions.
Reed has spoken with women detained at North Lake.
“Everyone I’ve been speaking with has had a deportation order, but has still been held here for months and months. So like, what are we doing?”
“There are folks that have been there for far too long,” said Diana Medin, an Ann Arbor-based attorney with clients at North Lake Processing Center who told her about the strike. “Even though they have no criminal history, no criminal record, that justifies their detention or their incarceration.”
According to the most data from ICE, the average stay at North Lake is 49 days, though advocates, attorneys, and detainees confirm many detainees have been there for almost six months.
ICE and GEO Group did not respond in time for publication.
Michelle Jokisch Polo of Michigan Public contributed reporting to this story.
![An editorial collage combining a black-and-white photograph of the Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building, home to the Detroit Immigration Court, with colorful torn-paper fragments of text clipped from immigration court bond hearing documents. The scraps — in pink, blue, and green — display partial phrases including "Granted" (with a checked checkbox), "Denied" (with a checked checkbox), "a flight risk," "Respondent is a flight risk," "the Immigration Judge denied Pe[titioner]," "(ICE), released Petit[ioner]," "under bond of $5,000," "bond of $15,000, with," and "Denied, because." The overlapping fragments visually contrast bond grants and denials, evoking the bureaucratic and high-stakes nature of immigration detention proceedings.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c57a8e5/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1920x1070+0+5/resize/560x312!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F75%2F7b%2Fa875b7d043b4b67d5862f5501af5%2Fbond-headers-5.png)
