Tuesday, September 13, 2016

22 Migrant Women Held in Pennsylvania Start a Hunger Strike to Protest Detention

On Wednesday Ms. Alberto and 21 other women who call themselves “Madres Berks,” or “Berks Mothers,” restarted a hunger strike they had conducted for 16 days in August.

By Liz Robbins, New York Times
September 2, 2016

Margarita Alberto cannot forget the tantrum her 6-year-old son threw several months ago. One afternoon he started shouting that he wanted to leave the Pennsylvania immigration detention center for families, where they have been held since Oct. 28, 2015, “He said, ‘It’s your fault that we’re here, your fault!’” Ms. Alberto said.

And then, she recalled, he tightened the lanyard holding his ID card around his neck, threatening to choke himself if they didn’t get out.

Ms. Alberto and her son, migrants from El Salvador seeking asylum in the United States, are still detained, along with 65 other women and children at the Berks County Residential Center in Leesport, Pa., about 70 miles northwest of Philadelphia.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/nyregion/22-migrant-women-held-in-pennsylvania-start-a-hunger-strike-to-protest-detention.html

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