Read the transcript for this report below.
ALEX BURKE, HOST: Dozens of detainees at nearby immigration detention centers are in the midst of a hunger strike. They’re protesting alleged unpaid labor and inhumane conditions at two Kern County facilities. KVPR’s Joshua Yeager reports from outside one of those facilities in McFarland.
[Sound of detainee singing original protest song in Spanish]
JOSHUA YEAGER: You’re hearing Reymundo, a detainee at the Golden State Annex outside Bakersfield. The facility is an ICE detention center run by private prison contractor GEO Group.
Reymundo is one of 84 detainees on a hunger strike. The detainees are protesting a $1 daily wage for working eight-hour janitorial shifts, a situation they say amounts to slave labor.
GEO has denied the existence of a hunger strike and maintains it is meeting all federal contracting standards.
In most cases, detainees here have already completed court-ordered sentences.
ROSA LOPEZ: Any normal person would get a chance to go home.
YEAGER: Rosa Lopez is a policy advocate with the ACLU.
LOPEZ: But because they’re caught in the immigration situation, they’re detained for months or for years while they fight their civil immigration case.
YEAGER: The hunger strike began on February 17.
For KVPR News, I'm Joshua Yeager.
