Big titleOctober 18, 2022
In the United States, asylum seekers detained at the Torrance County detention center in New Mexico say they face reprisals for denouncing extremely dangerous conditions and for participating in a hunger strike that ended completed last week. Orlando de los Santos is a 39-year-old asylum seeker from the Dominican Republic who helped organize the hunger strike and is now at risk of deportation. De los Santos has been held since July at the Torrance County Detention Center, which is operated by the private prison corporation CoreCivic. Lawyers and supporters of De los Santos are demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement immediately halt his deportation, scheduled for Tuesday. These are the words expressed by Orlando de los Santos.
orlando de los santos“The vast majority of all the people who took part in the strike were deported, they were deported. Unfortunately, one of my companions who did not want to leave, they used force with him, they took him away chained, handcuffed in a wheelchair. All the people here were terrified, horrified by all the reprisals that were taken because of the strike. They know I’m ready to tell the truth, to get the truth out about anything that’s going on here in Torrance. They want to silence me. They want to shut me up.”
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