Tag: ICE

Immigrant families detained in San Antonio-area lockup protest ICE detention of 5-year-old boy

Posted on by dirtysouth

January 25, 2026

Immigrant families protested Saturday inside a detention facility near San Antonio where federal authorities sent 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy Liam Conejo Ramos and his father after detaining them in Minneapolis last week.

Aerial photos captured by the Associated Press show parents and children at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley holding signs reading “Libertad para los niños,” or “Liberty for the kids” as they’re surveyed by guards. The lockup is located an hour southwest of the Alamo City.

“The message we want to send is for them to treat us with dignity and according to the law. We’re immigrants with children, not criminals,” Maria Alejandra Montoya Sanchez, 31, told the AP in a phone interview from the Dilley site. She and her 9-year-old daughter have been confined there since October.

Department of Homeland Security officials didn’t respond to the AP’s request for comment.

In videos shared on social media platform X, immigration attorney Eric Lee said detainees were protesting the treatment of Ramos, whose detention triggered a national uproar.

In the video clips, Lee explains he was ejected from the detention center while visiting a client held there. In the footage, inmates can he heard chanting “Let us go!” and “Libertad!” as the attorney films from the parking lot. Eventually, a detention center employee demands that he leave the premises altogether.

In one of the videos, Lee relates that he’d spoken to people inside the facility via phone and learned that around 80% of detainees, or a total of 1,500 people, participated in the demonstration.

“Guards are trying to physically block people from protesting — from joining the protest,” Lee says in the clip. “They’ve closed off a gate between two separate parts of the facility to prevent another section of the detention center from joining the protest. Up along the highway and on the roads, you can still see ICE, [Customs and Border Patrol] and county sheriffs’ vehicles traveling to this.”

As he closes out the video, Lee says he hopes the crackdown on the prisoners won’t turn violent.

ICE agents sent Ramos and his father to Dilley after detaining them outside their Minneapolis home. Family and neighbors maintain agents used the child as “bait” to convince his mother to open the door — an account ICE officials deny.

The South Texas Family Residential Center is the only family detention center currently operating in the U.S. Although the Biden White House shuttered it in 2024, President Donald Trump ordered it reopened when he returned for a second term.

Court testimony filed by immigrant advocacy group RAICES in July reported that Dilley detainees voiced concerns about lack of heath care, clean drinking water and the absence of adequate food. One detainee said her 9-month-old son lost more than 9 pounds during the first month of the family’s detention.

Found on Mainstream News

DOWN WITH GLOCK INC! NO PEACE FOR GENOCIDAIRES, OCCUPIERS, AND THEIR COLLABORATORS! WAR ON I.C.E. AND THE IOF!

Posted on by dirtysouth

GLOCK, Inc. is a deeply invested collaborator with oppressors at home and abroad: the zionist occupation forces owe it to glock for a wide selection of weapons they use to put bullets into Palestinians; in the belly of the beast, glock is $4.8 million dollars deep in i.c.e.’s money since january 20th of 2025, accommodating them with various glock weapons, gear, scopes, ammunition magazines, and accessories, in order to continue terrorizing all of us (and foremost immigrants and oppressed nations). However, the one advantage that sets anti-imperialists in amerikkka apart from those in the countries recipient of this empire’s wrath is this: we have immediate access to all of its internal organs, its veins and arteries, its senses and command controls. We have the unique ability to bring the war back home and engage blow-for-blow with the capitalist-imperialists. In light of all this, it would behoove us to know both who and where our enemy is, otherwise we would be truly lost in this life-or-death fight. One Taylor Crowley, Director of Sales at GLOCK, Inc. has been left in peace for far too long. He has been far too removed from the types of reactionary violence which result in no small part from his own personal efforts, and so it would be a welcomed gesture to offer him a taste of revolutionary violence. Hopefully he can be brought to his senses. That, however, is a responsibility only he has to himself. Our responsibility is to our siblings struggling for liberation, from Gaza to New Afrika. Free the land. Fuck the law. 2401 Weatherford Ct, Marietta, GA 30068.

Submitted anonymously.

Fuck Your List Pam Bondi Here’s Ours

Posted on by dirtysouth

January 6, 2026

<RECEIVED BY ANONYMOUS SUBMISSION>

For months, we have been collecting information on ICE agents and employees of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in response to the on-going abhorrent actions of these agencies across the so-called United States, often perpetrated against innocent people just for being brown, including defenseless children and infants.

Tonight, by the glow of our monitors, we are releasing a list of around 14,000 breached ICE and DHS accounts from across the internet. The list includes various information in varying completeness for each account, such as first and last name, email address, password hashes and, in some cases, cleartext passwords, home address, phone number. A download link to the file has been posted to various hacker forums across the Tor network.

Beneath the Prairie, the Concrete

Posted on by dirtysouth

December 11, 2025

What follows is a report on the organizing context in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex in light of the political repression surrounding, but not exclusive to, the Prairieland Defendants. This comes after we were asked to present on anti-ICE organizng in Chicago and DFW by comrades in the Zizania feminist squat in Athens. At the bottom we offer the best ways to provide solidarity to Prairieland Defendants, but you can find the most up-to-date support website via prairielanddefendants.com. We also highly encourage you to share the zine version of this report available here in both US letter and A4 sizes.

The Prairieland case is a political repression case stemming from a protest in solidarity with ICE Detainees that occurred on July 4th at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, south of Fort Worth. There are currently 18 defendants facing life-altering state and federal charges. All but one are still in custody, being held on multi-million dollar bails and enduring horrific conditions. The accusations of the government are absurd, and the police response has been extreme, making it obvious that this is part of an effort to criminalize dissent along with the other high profile cases in Spokane, Portland, and Illinois. It has repeatedly been used by the Trump administration and its allies as an example of violence by “antifa.”

What do we know?

  • There was a noise demo held at the Prairieland Detention Center on July 4th in solidarity with ICE detainees.
  • In all, 18 people have been arrested and charged with a variety of crimes. 9 people were arrested that night, and another was arrested the next day during a raid on a house. The spouse of one defendant was arrested and charged with federal obstruction of justice with the evidence of a box of anarchist zines found in his car. One person the police believe to have been at the protest was detained after a 10 day manhunt involving the eventual arrest of 6 others. One of those arrested as part of the manhunt was charged with tampering with physical evidence for removing someone from group chats.
  • Loved ones have good reasons to believe the state’s narrative is ludicrous based on their knowledge of the defendants and statements defendants have made since their arrest.
  • As on November 13th, ten of the defendants have been combined onto a single indictment with a total of twelve charges. Seven others are charges separately on information.

What does the state allege?

  • The state alleges that toward the end of the demonstration an individual fired a gun at an Alvarado police officer. The officer was allegedly injured in the neck and was released from the hospital within hours.
  • The prosecution alleges that this was a coordinated ambush planned by all those in attendance. The subject of the manhunt and only accused shooter, Benjamin Song, is claimed to have been hidden by a number of individuals.
  • The DOJ claims that the defendants are part of a violent ideological movement they call “antifa.” As evidence they cite zines, political rhetoric, and many practices common for activists such as using Signal, wearing black, and asserting their rights when arrested. They also use as evidence the printing press found in 2 defendants’ garage, which they used to print books for small left-wing presses.

– From the Support FAQ on dfwdefendants.noblogs.org/resources/

Prairieland Detention Center, located just south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, is one of ICE’s newest detention facilities. Holding kidnapped migrants and facilitating their deportations allows ICE to carry out the repression of the state’s internal political enemies. For example, the Prairieland facility detained Ángel Espinosa Villegas1, an anarchist participant of the George Floyd Uprising who was deported to Chile earlier this year and as of this writing, it still detains Leqaa Kordia2, a Palestinian participant of the Columbia encampment protests.

As mentioned in the quoted FAQ, this heavy repression of the Prairieland Defendants is being touted by the US government as its first legal case against “antifa.” Des Revol has been indicted on “corruptly concealing a document or record” for allegedly moving a box of zines, labeled as “antifa materials” by the government, from his spouse’s home. He is currently in federal prison with other defendants as his case moves forward and will likely be facing deportation proceedings afterwards3. In addition, a second FBI-led raid was conducted on the home of two defendants specifically to seize the printshop printer, the FBI justified this seizure by claiming their home printshop was used to print and distribute “antifa” and related “subversive” materials. Repression of anarchist publishing is nothing new of course, but this attack on speech in conjunction with the Oct 7th detainment of a local Filipino DACA recipient, Ya’akub Ira4, specifically for his advocacy of Palestinian liberation portend concerning headwinds for the currently unfolding repressive environment.

Setting aside the annoying and misinformed discourse of antifa in US social media, the significance of this legal maneuver should not be understated. Texas is located in the most conservative federal court circuit, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, the same court circuit responsible for bringing the case that overturned Roe v. Wade to the Supreme Court in addition to an attempt to bring a case to fully ban mifepristone (aka the abortion pill) in the US. On a bureaucratic level, this court also bucks standards of clearing its court dockets; its cases are heard at a much more rapid pace than other federal courts in the country. Already lawyers have expressed shock at the speed of the indictments and court hearings with the first of the trials starting in early-January according to the DFW Support Committee. To make matters worse, local Fort Worth courts have already felt emboldened to reprosecute organized leftist drag show defenders like Chris “Big Tex” G5 after their first failed attempts and the neighboring city of Arlington (the real host city of the FIFA World Cup Semifinals and Dallas Cowboy Stadium) has become one of the first cities to roll back LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections6. While Chicago is facing outright kidnappings from ICE, its legal justification, alongside heavier repression, may well come from this region.

All of this, of course, comes from a broader context. Texas is famously a bulwark for right wing politics and policy experimentation. In Johnson county alone, where the noise demo took place, Flock network surveillance cameras were used to collect evidence and prosecute a woman for allegedly self-administering an abortion. During the initial detention of Prairieland Defendants in Johnson County Jail, a fellow inmate (unrelated to this case) was forced to give birth in her cell and only afterwards was transferred to a hospital7. The sheriff of the county has been arrested, and released on bond, on unrelated sexual harassment, witness tampering, and aggravated perjury charges. In good old Texas fashion, a rally was held in the town in support of the sheriff after this news broke and a judge allowed him to continue working as sheriff8.

This last anecdote reflects the socio-political dynamics of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Texas more broadly. Everyone knows about the stereotype of the rambunctious gun-toting and freedom-loving Texan cowboy, but the imagination of freedom in Texas was conceived under the dual world-constitutive violences of the slave plantation and frontier settler-colonialism. On a more granular level, social life is heavily influenced by evangelical churches and their thinly-veiled political allegiances. Social interaction is determined by whatever church one decides to attend or not attend. The counterculture doesn’t fare much better. What often passes for radical is open support for the Democratic Party or its social democratic critics. While not a novel dynamic, it nevertheless thoroughly limits the political imagination. For example, a punk benefit show was organized to raise funds for the Prairieland Defendants, but Growl Records, the venue that initially booked the show and regularly hosts punk shows, backed out of hosting the show 3 days before the event was supposed to take place in the interest of keeping the venue a “safe space” for both sides of the political spectrum i.e. safe for Trump supporters. In addition, the owner of Growl is allegedly friends with police officers who informed him that the show would be surveilled and arrests made for language used for “attempts” at inciting a riot. This cowardice is not an isolated incident, local crust bands have asked for noise permits when asked to perform at squatted venues. Luckily a venue was secured at the last minute, but this is emblematic of the stupidity and political cowardice of local punk and punk-adjacent communities, despite their ethnic diversity, working class composition, and most significantly, radical posturing.

To say the least, it’s an uphill battle for the dozens of us that live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and actively seek and work towards the destruction of a settler-slaver conception of freedom that smothers us and is so readily valorized by people from all walks of life. Despite the grave legal implications from this case, there’s very little local support for the defendants, either due to pure ignorance or from being written off as “crazy extremists” or worse. Most “organizing” is relegated to digital spaces like discord servers or signal group chats due to the low-density suburban development of the entire metroplex resulting in car trips for simple errands regularly lasting 30+ minutes. Offline projects do exist of course and are important oases of radical relief, but if we are honest with ourselves, rarely do they become anything bigger than survival groups or glorified study groups with fluctuating attendance. We can contrast the Prairieland case with the recent inspirational anti-repression mobilization surrounding Sam Turnick’s arrest in Atlanta which of course comes in the wake of the Stop Cop City moment and the more robust radical community which preceded it9.

There’s sparse radical history or tradition for us to learn from. Significantly, and despite existing racial tensions, there was an absence of militant organizing and unrest in Dallas during the famous ‘long, hot summer of ‘67’ and its afterlife in the 1970s. Rallies and marches, especially from the left, are fairly uncommon and low in energy. When they do occur, rest assured they will be heavily policed by overzealous activists or groups like the Brown Berets and other state-communists like PSL and FRSO’s front groups. You can read the last two reportbacks on the haters cafe noblogs for a more in-depth look into these dynamics10. To date, if memory serves correctly, there have only been two small riots in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by those outside prison walls. The first after the murder of the 12 year-old Santos Rodriguez in 1973 and the second during the 2020 George Floyd rebellion. The latter really only describing some windows of gentrifying business getting smashed and graffitied — a low bar but better than nothing.

Whether due to Southern manners or genuine fear, open defiance against higher ups is rarely seen. Agree with the cop to his face and flip him off when he turns his back; truly the Texan spirit is rowdy! Local government collaboration with ICE is the norm and designations of “sanctuary city” or the like are rightly met with eye rolls and skepticism. Shame and ostracization are poor deterrents for people, including children of migrants, to join organizations like ICE and CBP. After all in the end, we all have to get our bag and even better if it’s in the service of a country that “we” were raised to be patriotic and grateful for.

Any sustained resistance — maybe more aptly described as avoidance — against ICE or the state in general, happens in the mundane. Undocumented communities already have a wealth of experience in avoiding the state from their homelands and through previous migration crackdowns. Recently there’s been increased reporting of ICE activities in Latino-majority areas of Dallas, but previous activities of so-called rapid response groups are stymied by the distance between neighborhoods and inflexibility of work life. Instead undocumented families and friends rely on each other by noting immigration checkpoints in WhatsApp groups, beginning their commutes earlier in the morning before the checkpoints are set up, and falsifying car registrations renewals or other bureaucratic necessities. Social ties, both genetic and chosen, are heavily relied on to bring amenities for those unable to travel outside their home or to raise funds via raffles or parties. Of course we are not uncritical of the fraught dynamics that this support can operate from, nor do we conflate this with an underlying practice of a latent “brown anarchy” as the direction of these actions often point towards an integration and even pride in the maintenance of broader capitalist American society, but in light of these practices, the skills and best practices recommended in pieces like “States of Siege” from Ill Will seem asinine by those of us raised and embedded in undocumented communities. Do so-called revolutionaries have nothing else to offer us?

We write this report not just to complain about the state of radical politics in DFW, but to emphasize the odds we’re up against. We are not trying to undermine the work of DFW Support Committee, and other comrades and groups, but the community is small here in Texas and lacks connection to broader networks. Haters Cafe is not blameless in this, we have so far failed to cultivate propulsive capacity to generalize an understanding of rebellion beyond the spectacular and recuperative (i.e. marches, activism, orgs, etc.) or a substantive counter-narrative to combat the deep acceptance and striving of suburban American ideals for most of the population. We often see the assumption that people of color, both immigrant and homegrown, are resistant to the latter values which is not just patronizing, but quite plainly wrong. There are various causes for this failure of a counter-narrative on our end from grave interpersonal failures to the constant demands of daily life, but instead of self-aggrandizing hopeful narratives that promote failed dead-end strategies, honest accountings of on the ground situations are what’s needed. Dallas is not New York, it is not Seattle, it is not Portland, it is not LA, it is not Chicago. Dallas is the rest of America crystallized in space and ideology and we need your solidarity and support from the outside to come out on the other side of this wave of repression stronger and more prepared for the inevitable next waves.

The best ways to be in solidarity with the Prairieland Defendants are the tried and true letter writing, fundraising, and awareness events. We encourage you to be creative and decentralized in this. Take a look at how people in your neck of the woods are already organizing themselves. You don’t have seek permission from the DFW Support Committee, just let them know if you think the increased visibility will be useful. You can find contact and commisary information for the defendants at prairielanddefendants.com along with a link to join the DFW Support Committee announcements signal. To contact the support committee for additional questions, their email is dfwsupportcommittee [at] hacari.com

Source: haters cafe

Louisiana ICE detainees on hunger strike over ‘inhumane conditions’

Posted on by dirtysouth

BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Detainees at the Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Angola are on a hunger strike.

According to a release, 19 detainees at the new ICE facility, Camp 47, sparked a hunger strike against “inhumane conditions.”

The detainees are demanding medical care and prescriptions, mental health care, basic necessities, and visitation from ICE officers for assistance.

Organizations, such as the National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) and the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition (SEDND), have received reports about detainees missing basic hygiene products and neglected health conditions. The detainees also shared that the facility lacks key services, including a law library and religious services, which are required by the Performance-Based National Detention Standards.

“Governor [Jeff] Landry declared a so-called ‘state of emergency’ in order to reopen yet another inhumane detention center on Louisiana taxpayers’ dime. But the real emergency is what’s happening inside: people are being denied life-saving medication, and some may die as a result. These hunger strikers are bravely speaking out, risking retaliation from Camp J guards and putting their own lives on the line to ensure those around them receive the medical care they need,” said the Steering Committee of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition.

“We stand with the hunger strikers as they demand basic necessities to which all humans are entitled. Angola’s not being able to provide necessary medical care, hygiene supplies, and access to other essential services is just another reason why this facility should be shut down,” said Bridget Pranzatelli of the National Immigration Project.

In July, Landry published an executive order to repair the facility formerly known as Camp J. The order stated that Camp J was in a state of deterioration and posed an injury risk for anyone in the facility.

On Sept. 3, Landry announced Camp 47’s opening, stating that 51 detainees were already housed at the facility.

Published 9/20/25
Via maintream news

Black August Hunger Strike at Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center

Posted on by dirtysouth




Report on hunger strike organized by African detainees in the Bravo Delta dorm of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center from Perilous Chronicle.
by Ryan Fatica


On August 10, 48 African detainees in the Bravo Delta dorm of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center declared their collective refusal to eat, continuing a yearslong saga of collective protest and repression that has characterized their fight for asylum on the continent. The majority of the strikers are English-speakers from Cameroon, where armed conflict is making the country increasingly unlivable, and where the English-speaking minority faces repression by the country’s authoritarian government. After crossing three continents and an ocean seeking safety in the US, their battle for human dignity continues within ICE detention.
Sylvie Bello, of the Cameroonian American Council, situated the hunger strike in the broader context of Black August, a celebration that began in California’s prison system in the 1970s to commemorate the death of Black Panther leader and incarcerated intellectual George Jackson.
“August is Black August,” Bello told Perilous in an interview, “and in the spirit of the ancestors before them and the elders before them who started what is known as Black August out in California, the Cameroonians at Pine Prairie led a protest in the form of a hunger strike.”
The strike follows other significant protests led by Cameroonians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention this year, including one in February (Black History Month) and one on Juneteenth, a yearly celebration of the formal end of chattel slavery in the US. Citing the significance of Juneteenth, the strikers released a video and audio statement explaining their motivation for acting.
The August 10 hunger strike was met with immediate violence by guards, according to detainees who spoke with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One striker reported that as they returned to their dorms after refusing to eat in the cafeteria, guards tackled three detainees, intending to take them to solitary confinement. A scuffle ensued as the remaining 45 detainees refused to return to their dorms until the three were released.
“I stood up so strongly,” the detainee recalled, “they had guns, I tried to remove [the officer]’s leg from them, they were trying to put them in a choke hold, I ran toward them, he was pointing a gun at us, a long gun. I asked them to shoot me and kill me.”
As a result of their courage, the three detainees bound for solitary were released and returned to their unit with the rest of the strikers.
Detainees paused the strike when ICE agreed to negotiate, but these talks broke down, and by August 21st the strike was back on.
Rose Murray of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been in touch with the strikers. In an email to Perilous, Murray outlined the repression they are facing as a result of their resistance.
“All 45 hunger strikers have been taken to [segregation], and one Cameroonian who just came out of surgery who is not even on hunger strike, whose health is precarious, has been taken as well,” Murray wrote. “Earlier today officials in militarized gear came to take them to [segregation], ‘dressed as if they were going to war.’”
Detainees also reported a lack of sanitation precautions in response to COVID-19. “In front of the strikers,” Murray wrote, “officials cleared out people from the rooms who had not completed their 14 day quarantine period, who had been transferred into Pine Prairie from other facilities. They did not clean out the rooms in between and instead the strikers were made to go into the rooms immediately after the quarantined individuals were escorted out.”
Bryan D. Cox, ICE spokesperson for the Southeastern region, told the Louisiana Illuminator that “claims regarding an extended hunger strike by a group of detainees at the facility are not accurate.”
ICE guidelines only recognize a hunger strike once a detainee has missed 9 consecutive meals.

Resistance to Indefinite Detention
Louisiana is the center of the immigration detention boom under the Trump administration. Nine facilities in the state signed new contracts to house migrants in recent years, many of them cash-strapped parish jails in rural areas with few job opportunities or other sources of economic activity.
The rapid rise in the number of immigrant detainees housed in Louisiana is in large part due to the low per-diem rate facilities in the state charge ICE. According to The Times-Picayune, the average cost of housing an ICE detainee in Louisiana is about $65 per day, as compared with the average national rate of $126 per day.
According to detainees and their supporters, the motivations for the hunger strike are many, including the conditions of the for-profit Louisiana detention center and the dysfunctional immigration system in which the strikers are caught. Many strikers complain of gross medical neglect, saying their conditions have continued to worsen during their long stay in detention.
According to newly-released detention data from ICE, during fiscal year 2020, the average stay in ICE detention is 61 days, which has increased from previous years. At Pine Prairie, the average length of stay is 86 days. Nonetheless, according to Bello, the majority of Cameroonians at Pine Prairie have been detained at the facility for more than a year, including one 23-year-old who has been held there for nearly two years.
Similar conditions exist at Winn Correctional, another for-profit detention center operated under contract with ICE in Louisiana. At Winn, the average length of stay in fiscal year 2020 was 118 days, but 8 Central American detainees interviewed by Perilous reported that they had been detained at the facility for over a year. Detainees led a protest earlier this month, demanding basic information about their cases and an end to indefinite detention, among other concerns.

Seeking Refuge Halfway Around the World
Although the majority of migrants seeking entry into the United States are Central Americans, a growing number began their journey much farther away, many boarding planes in various African countries to fly into South American airports with lax immigration standards, such as in Ecuador and Brazil.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, the number of “extracontinental” migrants (those traveling to the Americas whose origin is not the Western Hemisphere) seeking refuge in the Americas has increased dramatically in recent years, due in part to stricter immigration policies put in place by European countries.

(Source: Caitlyn Yates, Migration Policy Institute).

“Extracontinental migrants most frequently have the United States or Canada in mind as their final destination,” wrote Caitlyn Yates in a report last year on African and Asian migration to the Americas, “though given that this is an arduous, expensive, and often dangerous journey, some abandon their quest and instead remain in South America, whether by choice or circumstance.”
According to Yates, “The top origin countries for Africans apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol are Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).” However, she points out, these numbers do not include those migrants who turn themselves in at ports of entry, declaring their request for asylum. Data on migrants seeking asylum at ports of entry by nationality are not maintained by the government, so it is impossible to know the exact number.
According to The Los Angeles Times, “Mexican authorities apprehended a record 4,779 migrants from Africa in the first seven months” of 2019, “nearly four times the number detained during the same period in 2018.” Many of those migrants are from Cameroon.
When asked why Cameroonians were fleeing their country in such large numbers right now, Bello was very clear about where the blame lies. “The short answer: as a result of American foreign policy.” As the Illuminator reports, applications for the release of Cameroonians are denied at a rate 2.5 times higher than other applicants.
According to Bello, the immigration system in Louisiana is particularly dysfunctional. “In normal process”, Bello observed, detainees are released shortly after being detained, and in many states Cameroonians are continuing to be released even under the Trump administration. “Let’s take Adelanto, or Otay Mesa [in California],” Bello continued, “or even in Arizona we have several Cameroonians in Arizona who have been released by bond. Who have been released by parole. Who have been released directly by asylum. Louisiana will not let up. They just will not.” Neither, it seems, will the resistance.

A Legacy of Resistance
The strike at Pine Prairie is not an isolated incident, but the continuation of at least a year of consistent protest on the part of African immigrants against the failure of the global community to grant them refuge as they flee their often war-torn countries of origin.
According to Sylvie Bello of the Cameroonian American Council, this legacy of resistance to unjust immigration policies stretches back to before these migrants found themselves in ICE detention. On July 9, 2019, African immigrants staged a protest in Tijuana, Mexico, blocking Mexican transport vans in protest of what they said was systemic discrimination against African asylum seekers in that country.

Video link: Rescued African migrants say they are fleeing slavery

Video link: Des femmes protestent devant le service des migrations à Tapachula (Mexique), août 2019

A month later, on August 19, 2019, another group of African immigrants staged a protest in Tapachula, Mexico, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala. The asylum seekers were stuck in the city for weeks where they were denied the documentation necessary to continue their journey north. The migrants, mostly women and children, held banners and laid in the road, blocking transport vans at the border through which they’d been denied entry.

Alain Tita Mongu, a Cameroonian emigrant who spoke with The Observer explained the status of legal limbo many Africans found themselves in:
Two days after I arrived in Mexico, I was put in immigration detention in Tapachula for having entered the country illegally.
Two weeks later, they released me and handed me a document that I thought would guarantee me freedom to travel through the country– some of the Africans who arrived in Mexico a few months prior had explained to me that’s how it works. So I immediately hopped on a bus going north. But about an hour and half into my journey, there was a security check and I was sent to Tapachula. It turned out that the document that I had didn’t even authorise me to leave Chiapas.
I had to go to the Mexican immigration service in Tapachula’s Las Vegas neighbourhood. Once there, I realized that my document was utterly useless because it stated that I was “stateless”.

The hunger strike this month at Pine Prairie is at least the fourth major protest led by Cameroonians in ICE detention this year.
In late February, female Cameroonian detainees at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas engaged in a sit-down strike in protest of indefinite detention, inadequate medical care and other issues. The women released a letter at the start of their strike, explaining the conditions they faced:

Some of our sisters are sick and not being well treated. Others are running mad due to trauma and stress. One person is on a wheelchair who needs surgery and many others with serious health conditions who also need surgery but are be neglected. The medical department is very rude to us, they tell us we’re pretending to be sick even when someone is in serious pain, they laugh and mock at your medical condition, they give wrong medication to patients and they don’t attend to you when you really need medical attention.
Being in detention for more than 6 months as refugees we’ve never seen any Human Rights Official or Organizations for Refugees or even posts on notice boards. When we asked the ICE Supervisor, Mr. Nicholas Fawler, he told us he doesn’t have any connection with the Human Rights Committee or any UN Organization.
We are being treated unfairly and there is a lot of discrimination between the African women and the whites. Almost all the white women we came in with and even others who came after us have been released on parole and bond but we’ve been denied both parole and bond.

The following week, on March 3, 2020, male Cameroonian detainees at Pine Prairie organized a hunger strike that lasted at least ten days in protest of their conditions of confinement and the dysfunctional asylum process they faced.
In response, all of the hunger strikers were transferred to solitary confinement in retaliation for their protest. In the solitude of isolation cells, the detainees decided to end the strike. In an email, an attorney in touch with the strikers described the retaliation they faced:
43 of them were put in segregation to break up the strike, and while in [segregation] several of them reported that they were not given water and that they were forced to drink out of the toilet. This is unrelated to COVID-19, although the lack of basic sanitation is especially striking in the context of an exploding pandemic.
Months later, the same migrants again find themselves in segregation for acting together to demand justice. As far as we know, their protest continues despite their transfer to segregation, but it is not clear how long they will be able to sustain their strike after all they’ve been through.
Almost exactly a year after their protest at the Mexican-Guatemalan border and nearly two thousand miles further north, the migrants continue their fight for the dignity of a home and an end to a life of uncertainty and conflict. During their Juneteenth protest earlier this year, one Cameroonian held up a sign for the world to see, with the words “God is Watching” scrawled in thick, block letters. Neither a demand nor a plea, this simple statement of existential certainty was directed at the human community like a mirror held up, forcing us to face ourselves.

Originally posted 8/20/25
Via It’s Going Down

Detainees report alleged uprising at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

Posted on by dirtysouth

August 29, 2025

Guards at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail deployed teargas and engaged in a mass beating of detainees to quell a mini-uprising, it was reported on Friday.

The allegations, made by at least three detainees in phone calls come as authorities race to empty the camp in compliance with a judge’s order to close the remote tented camp in the Everglades wetlands.

The incident took place after several migrants held there began shouting for “freedom” after one received news a relative had died, according to the outlet. A team of guards then rushed in and began beating individuals indiscriminately with batons, and fired teargas at them, the detainees said.

“They’ve beaten everyone here, a lot of people have bled. Brother, teargas. We are immigrants, we are not criminals, we are not murderers,” one of the men reportedly told Noticias 23 in a call.

The detainees claimed a fire alarm was sounding continuously, and a helicopter was heard circling overhead.

Reports of “inhumane” conditions and brutality at the camp, where migrants are held in metal cages as they await deportation, have become commonplace. Donald Trump and Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, celebrated its harsh environment as they toured the facility together when it opened last month.

Kathleen Williams, a federal judge in Miami, last week ordered Alligator Alcatraz to close within 60 days for breaching environmental laws, and on Wednesday refused a motion by attorneys for the state of Florida and the Trump administration to stay her order.

It was not clear when the latest incident is alleged to have taken place, and the Guardian was unable to independently confirm details.

The Florida division of emergency management (FDEM), which operates the jail on behalf of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), denied it had occurred.

“These reports are manufactured. There is no uprising happening at Alligator Alcatraz. Detainees are given clean, safe living conditions and guards are properly trained on all state and federal protocols,” Stephanie Hartman, the department’s director of communications, said in an email.

Protesters who have maintained an almost constant presence at the jail’s gates since its 2 July opening said they were unaware of any incident amounting to an uprising, but have chronicled other reports of abuse taking place there.

“People held inside the facility were on hunger strike for more than 14 days, despite the DeSantis administration denying it. What they apparently did was ship people who were hunger striking out to other facilities, Krome [in Miami], to Texas etc, to break it up,” said Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the Workers Circle.

“[An uprising] would not surprise me given the abuses that people have experienced.”

DeSantis told reporters on Wednesday that authorities have “increased the pace of the removals from there”, after Kevin Guthrie, executive director of FDEM, revealed in a memo, reported by the Associated Press, that “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days”.

The governor announced plans earlier this month for a new immigration jail in north Florida, to be called “the deportation depot”, while other states have joined the push to build detention camps with names mocking immigrants, including the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana, and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.Unravel

Found on Mainstream Media

Source: Unravel

DFW Support Statement

Posted on by dirtysouth

We are aggrieved to report that the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office has arrested another member of the Dallas-Fort Worth community in relation to the July 4th Prairieland ICE Detention Center protest, bringing the total number of defendants in the case to seventeen. This person, Susan Kent, was also a member of the DFW Support Committee, the defense committee for the Prairieland Defendants. Like the rest of the defendants, their bond amount is set to an absurd and prohibitive $10 million dollars. We denounce this escalation by the state in its desperate attempts to criminalize people showing solidarity with those being kidnapped by ICE and to undermine dissent against rising authoritarianism.

From the beginning, this case has been rife with inconsistencies, unbelievable accusations, and violence against the defendants and their loved ones. We do not know the state’s allegations against Susan, but we believe this arrest is part of the state’s attempt to terrorize the residents of Dallas-Fort Worth. To arrest someone well over a month after the July 4th event signals the state’s dogged attempt to tear through this community. Susan was actively working to support the defendants, to advocate for them to get the best legal defense possible and encourage them to exercise their constitutional rights. Forcing this person to endure the same horrific conditions as the defendants they were working to support fits the state’s tactics of repression in this case: brutalizing defendants’ family members, conducting violent raids, subjecting defendants to solitary confinement, incessantly strip searching defendants, and other cruelty, such as forcing a defendant to clean feces off the walls of their cell. This case is emblematic of the outrageous arrests happening around the country, including in Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, as well as the unnecessary federalization of police in Washington DC, all while legal cases against protestors in Los Angeles are falling apart due to lack of evidence. These actions by the state are not meant to seek justice or truth. They instead intend to terrify us and fracture solidarity among our movements. But we won’t let them succeed.

Our friends and loved ones sought to show support for immigrants and ICE detainees facing brutal violence at the hands of the state. The Prairieland defendants are not terrorists. The real terrorists are the ICE agents kidnapping people off the street, destroying families and communities. We are devastated at Susan’s arrest, but we are not deterred. We call on all those who support resistance and seek a freer world to stand up against this brutality and repression. For more information about the Prairieland defendants and how you can help raise funds for their defense, please go to dfwdefendants.wordpress.com or donate to the crowd fundraiser at givesendgo.com/supportDFWprotestors.

via https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org

ICE contracts Southeast Georgia prison to create largest detention center in U.S – Folkston, GA

Posted on by dirtysouth

June 13, 2025

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is expanding its processing center in Folkston, Ga. to double the current capacity, establishing the largest ICE detention center in the country.

The federal government brokered a deal with private prison company GEO to contract a now-defunct prison in Folkston as an additional holding space existing ICE facility.

“They’re going to be brought together, and when they come together, some it will be a detention center. Some of it will be a processing center, and some of it will be just for them to get ready to transfer,” Rep. Buddy Carter (GA-01) said.

According to GEO, the facility is under contract with ICE as of June 6.

Found on Mainstream News

ICE protesters and police clash on Chamblee Tucker Road – Doraville, GA

Posted on by dirtysouth

June 14, 2025

A protest against federal immigration enforcement escalated Saturday afternoon along Chamblee Tucker Road, where police used tear gas and arrested multiple demonstrators after declaring the gathering an unlawful assembly.

The protest, organized to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies and ICE operations, drew dozens of people waving flags and chanting along the road near a shopping center. The crowd soon filled the sidewalks.

The central effort of the DeKalb protest, organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and local activists, was a march down Chamblee Tucker Road. The protesters reportedly wanted to march onto I-285, but a large law enforcement presence was massed to block them.

DeKalb County police say the demonstrators ignored repeated orders to stay on the sidewalk, prompting officers—many in riot gear from both DeKalb County Police and the Georgia State Patrol—to respond with crowd control measures.

Around 1:45 p.m., [news source] reporters saw officers in riot gear shooting tear gas to break up the rally.

After police threw the gas and moved the crowd, protesters could be heard chanting, “oink, oink piggy, piggy” and “stop cop city.” 

DeKalb officials reported at least eight arrests as of 5 p.m.

Among those arrested was Mario Guevara, a prominent metro Atlanta journalist known for his reporting on immigration raids. Attorneys for journalist Mario Guevara say he was here on a work authorization and is trying to get a green card, but remains in the DeKalb County Jail on an ICE hold despite being granted a signature bond following his arrest on Saturday.

Compiled from mainstream news sources.