{"id":209571,"date":"2019-11-21T13:17:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T18:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=209571"},"modified":"2019-11-21T13:17:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T18:17:22","slug":"more-cubans-detained-by-immigration-in-u-s-on-hunger-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/more-cubans-detained-by-immigration-in-u-s-on-hunger-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"More Cubans detained by immigration in U.S. on hunger strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

The hunger strikes by Cubans who are in the process of deportation have intensified in recent days. This time they are about 12 Cubans who are confined in the Cibola County Correction Center, in the city of Milan, New Mexico.<\/span><\/p>\n

The reason for the strike is that their requests for political asylum have been denied and the authorities have included them in a process for their deportation to the island. As a result of this strike, two of them told local media, the prison authorities have put them in punishment cells isolated from the rest of the prison population.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not criminals but they keep us prisoners. We are threatened with death if they take us back to our country, they will have to bury us here, they will have to cremate us here,\u201d said Cuban Juan Carlos Pe\u00f1a Pav\u00f3n, 51, who is being held in the Cibola center after passing nine days in an isolation cell.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a Pav\u00f3n is part of a group that has starred in similar protests in another prison, in the city of Chaparral in the same state, and even two of his cellmates have attempted suicide, the newspaper The New Mexican <\/em><\/span>reported<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the prison authorities persist in treating them that way, New Mexico Governor Michelle Luj\u00e1n Grisham has demanded that the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stop this \u201cinhuman treatment\u201d in the correction centers that belong to her government. But prison authorities have ignored the governor’s protests and the ill-treatment has intensified, the Cuban said, which is why at least 12 of those in solitary confinement have continued on their hunger strike. \u201cWe are in this, if they do not pay attention to us we will die,\u201d said Pe\u00f1a Pav\u00f3n.<\/span><\/p>\n

The governor emphasized that like many New Mexico residents, she is outraged by the conditions that exist in prisons because of the repeated confinement in the isolation cells of people who only aspire to political asylum, and added that all these complaints are indications that the situation is reproduced in other prisons and the federal government should prevent such abuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the morning of this Wednesday, the ICE office in New Mexico declined to comment to OnCuba<\/strong>. Instead, it directed that the comment be requested from the jail authorities but no one answered the phone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Pe\u00f1a Pav\u00f3n and another Cuban named Luis Valladares Oliva have gone before an immigration judge, who denied their asylum requests, human rights activists have indicated that the authorities should release them so they could find a lawyer to lead the process of appeal since the hearings so far focused on determining if Cubans have \u201ccredible fear\u201d of returning to their country and, technically, have not yet received a deportation order.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, \u201cthey don’t do it because they want to deport them as they see fit. They are running the risk of spending a lot of time in prison until they are put on a plane and deported,\u201d lawyer Ricardo Hampton Smith told OnCuba<\/strong>. The protests of Cubans in immigration prisons <\/span>are not new<\/span><\/a> since they have been reported for a year in the face of the increase in deportations and political asylum denials.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the beginning of October, a Cuban from Pinar del R\u00edo, Royl\u00e1n Hern\u00e1ndez D\u00edaz, 43, <\/span>committed suicide <\/span><\/a>at a Louisiana prison, where another 500 Cubans are waiting for immigration hearings or to be deported to their country. The case of Hern\u00e1ndez D\u00edaz is rare, because the man and his wife crossed the border five months ago through El Paso, Texas, and were arrested by immigration. However, the woman was released and the husband sent to the Louisiana prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

Se ampl\u00eda la revuelta de cubanos en c\u00e1rceles de inmigraci\u00f3n en EEUU<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n