In Georgia, at least 350 immigrants detained at the for-profit Stewart Detention Center, known for its chronic medical neglect, also held a hunger strike demanding their immediate release. In audio recordings, detained immigrants describe cramped conditions, poor planning, and increasing panic among prisoners.

Asylum seeker: “We are frustrated because of the uncertainty, because we don’t know in which moment we can be infected with this virus by people who are coming in here from the outside. We could be infected at any moment — when we go outside, when we go to the yard, when we go eat. We are constantly at risk of infection. So this hunger strike is to demand ICE that, out of humanity, they give us our freedom.”