In New Jersey, protests outside Bergen County Jail continue, demanding the release of immigrant prisoners during the pandemic. This is one of the prisoners speaking through the phone to a crowd of protesters Sunday.

“Robert”: “We all want to go home to our families. Nobody wants to stay in jail anymore. We are not inmates or prisoners; we are detainees. We want to go home. Everybody wants to go home.”

This comes as advocates are denouncing ICE’s violent retaliation against a group of prisoners who led a hunger strike for over one month at Bergen County Jail. The strike was broken up last week after at least five men were transferred to other jails, and one of them was deported to Mexico, according to advocates. Another one of the former hunger strikers, a father from Guatemala, was released from Bergen County Monday with an ankle monitor.