Migrants endure hunger and feel coerced to work at Washington detention center

CNN — The 40-year-old mother found herself in solitary confinement, locked in a cell behind a steel door for 23 hours a day, according to her legal filing and attorney. GEO Group said that medical care at the center is provided by ICE’s Health Services Corps and that GEO Group “has no involvement in provision of these services.” R.M. As of July 5, Cortes Romero said, his client “has been able to talk to her daughter one time, for one minute, and both of them were crying, so they didn’t get a lot of words out.” Complaints of mistreatment In recent weeks, amid intense public debate over the Trump administration’s now-reversed policy of separating all children from parents at the border, the protests outside the Northwest Detention Center have escalated. ‘Voluntary work program’ One of the biggest points of conflict between GEO Group and the immigrants at Northwest Detention Center is over the “Voluntary Work Program,” mandated by ICE, under which detainees do cleaning, laundry, kitchen and other jobs. According to the Washington attorney general’s office, at the Northwest Detention Center, “Detainees described working through the night buffing floors and painting walls in exchange for chips and candy.” Similar suits target four other detention centers run by GEO Group or another private-prison operator.