For Immediate Release: Monday, April 27th, 2026

Contact: No Detention Centers in Michigan, info@nodetentioncentersmi.org

Baldwin, MI — With new reports continuing to emerge over the past week of medical crises leaving many in fear for their safety, immigrants held inside and recently released from the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin affirmed that the collective hunger strike and work stoppage launched on Monday, April 20th, had restarted on Saturday in multiple units after a pause, and had proceeded through the weekend. Information provided by individuals in detention or freed late last week suggested that this temporary pause on the strikes was partly due to external pressure from GEO Group employees.

“The hunger and work strike is happening,” said Juan, an immigrant recently released from North Lake on a habeas corpus petition, in a translated statement using a pseudonym. “Some people involved have been sanctioned; others do not have any violations. But they have all suffered abuse. Today, Saturday, April 25th, people are refusing to go to work to protest the lack of medical care. The conditions at the prison are truly deplorable. If you are in pain, they don’t care about your symptoms, they just tell you to take Tylenol and that’s it. And there are people who are suffering from many different illnesses with no treatment whatsoever.”

Responding to announcements from Immigration and Customs Enforcement denying any hunger strike at the detention facility, which is owned and operated by the Florida-based GEO Group, Juan added: “The government is lying, as always, when they say there is no strike. There are people who want to speak and want their voices to be heard, so that people on the outside can see with their own eyes that ICE is lying.”

The statement was shared by advocates both at a Saturday afternoon rally in Romulus—where hundreds of protesters participated in a national day of action against ICE expansion at the site of a warehouse purchased in February for use as a detention center—and on Sunday afternoon in Baldwin, where over 70 supporters of the strikers’ demands met to express their sustained solidarity and to play music for those detained. Participants in both events also read statements from Women’s Collective Civil Action, a group of over a dozen women who filed a joint habeas corpus petition this month describing further medical neglect and violations of their constitutional rights in detention.

“These women are speaking out at great personal risk,” said Ale Rojas of No Detention Centers in Michigan, “and the hundreds of men striking at this facility have done so to draw attention to terrifying systemic conditions that threaten both physical and mental health. These men have been going against their human instinct to eat and survive because they want us to know that they are being mistreated. Constant neglect and mistreatment have negative effects on mental health and overall feelings of belongingness which are essential to human survival. A man at North Lake attempted suicide last week. Guards have been highlighting the names of people refusing meals and threatening them with transfer if they continue. If there is no hunger strike, why have they been taking people’s names?”

Originally built in 1999 as the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility, North Lake has closed and reopened four times, with its most recent incarnation as an immigrant-only federal prison also having seen documented hunger strikes denied by the GEO Group. The ACLU of Michigan and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center are calling on Congress to require an independent investigation. Michigan Multifaith Clergy Rapid Response, a statewide network of faith leaders, has announced a solidarity fast and week of action in which over 135 people will participate

“Multi-faith leaders from across the state are calling on Michiganders to join in solidarity with the people detained at the North Lake Processing Center,” said Rev. Greta Jo Seidohl, Unitarian Universalist Minister, serving All Souls Community Church of West Michigan. “The Solidarity Fast is a call to amplify the courageous actions of the hunger strikers and class-action coalition through spiritual reflection and social action. Folks participating are sent a daily prayer and action to take. Anyone is invited to join us. And if you can’t fast, please take the time to amplify the messages coming from North Lake and being shared by MI Clergy Rapid Response—it costs you nothing and could mean everything.”

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No Detention Centers in Michigan is a statewide coalition organizing to abolish immigration detention and migrant incarceration in Michigan and beyond.