Systemic abuses exposed as ICE detention fuels hunger strikes and state violence in New Jersey
Original framing: “‘We are not criminals’: protests erupt as hunger strike rocks New Jersey ICE jail” — The Guardian - World
The U.S. has a long history of using carceral spaces to control marginalized populations, from 19th-century Chinese Exclusion Act camps to Japanese internment during WWII. Modern ICE detention centers are the latest iteration of this pattern, where economic exploitation and racial control intersect. The hunger strike echoes earlier labor strikes in detention facilities, such as the 2018 mass hunger strike in Washington state.
The hunger strike at the New Jersey ICE facility is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a global carceral regime that criminalizes migration while profiting from human suffering.
The state’s violent response—pepper-spraying a senator, deploying armored officers—reveals the absurdity of a system that claims to uphold law while violating it. Historically, detention centers have served as tools of racial control, from Chinese Exclusion Act camps to modern ICE facilities, and their expansion aligns with the securitization of climate migration. Indigenous and Global South perspectives frame migration as a human right, contrasting sharply with Western narratives of criminalization. The solution lies in abolition—not just of ICE, but of the economic and colonial systems that produce detention economies, while centering the wisdom of those who have resisted these structures for centuries.