Hunger Strikes Erupt at ICE Concentration Camps in Michigan and Pennsylvania
Read our feature article on combating and resisting ICE terror here.
Hundreds of imprisoned immigrants are on hunger strike at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
At the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, detainees initiated a hunger strike on April 20 in protest of medical neglect and legal delays in their cases.
A press release from the advocacy group No Detention Centers in Michigan included a statement from detainee Ahmad Alnajdawi of Jordan: “I have a lot of people here who speak Arabic, and this is very hard for them. They cannot talk to the case managers; they cannot talk to ICE officers; they cannot talk to anyone. The food here is pitiful. I want the people outside to know, they’re treating us like animals.”
At least 50 anti-ICE protesters assembled outside of the detention center in support of the striking prisoners on April 21.
A hunger strike broke out around the same time at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. There, nearly 100 immigrants have gone on strike to protest contaminated food, staff neglect, and lack of medical attention.
The strike was called after a prisoner began to vomit a “green substance” and then fainted on April 16. Staff members refused aid to the sick prisoner, instead ordering other detainees to handle the emergency themselves.
The Shut Down Detention Campaign, which has publicized reports from inside, is calling for the release of those who are sick or on hunger strike, the closure of the facility, and the termination of the prison contracts by Clearfield County commissioners.
Clearfield County commissioners have denied there ever being a hunger strike at Moshannon.
In response to the hunger strike at Moshannon Valley, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson justified the torture of inmates: “This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives. (…) Being in detention is a choice.”
Moshannon Valley has among the highest rates of solitary confinement in the country. According to federal reports, Chinese migrant Chaofeng Ge committed suicide there after just five days in custody in August 2025, and East African migrant Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir died from a medical episode after being held in the concentration camp for 215 days.
Both the Michigan and Pennsylvania facilities are owned by the private prison monopoly GEO Group.
A record number of ICE detainees have been murdered in 2026 already. Immigrants sent to concentration camps around the country have rebelled against their conditions in the form of hunger strikes and demonstrations, including at the Dilley detention center in Texas, “Alligator Alcatraz” camp in Florida, the “Louisiana Lockup” at the infamous Angola prison, and the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.
Image retrieved from California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
