In southern Texas, immigrant mothers held with their children in a private detention center have launched a new hunger strike and work stoppage to demand their release. The women are asylum seekers who say they have been denied bond despite having established a credible fear of violence if they return to Central America. Honduran migrant Kenia Galeano, who spent five months in detention with her two-year-old son before finally being released on bond, described how she was put in isolation as punishment after joining an earlier hunger strike.

Kenia Galeano: “We knew that we had to find a way to let people outside know what was happening inside Karnes, and so we started the hunger strike. There were three of us, three mothers, who were placed in isolation. Inside this room it was really cold. It was dark. And there was a bed in the bathroom; the toilet was right next to the bed, the toilet where we had to go to the bathroom. And my son was in there with me this entire time.”

For more on the hunger strike and conditions at the Karnes detention center, click here.