A group of people detained inside a privately-run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail in Georgia have launched a mass hunger strike this week to protest against their prolonged detention and the facility’s conditions, according to advocates and family members.

Advocates estimate at least 73 detained immigrants are participating in the hunger strike inside the Folkston D Ray James ICE processing center in south-east Georgia. The Folkston facility, a former state prison, is run by the private prison company GEO Group under a contract with ICE.

Some of the men participating in the hunger strike released a video and an open letter, requesting they be released while they continue pursuing their asylum and immigration cases. Two Russian asylum seekers detained in Folkston also released a document they wrote, outlining what they claim to be “violations” inside, including allegations of substandard medical care, threats by GEO Group guards, moldy food and a lack of due process.

“Many of us have been separated from our families,” reads the open letter, which was signed this summer by 45 detained immigrants and published this week, as dozens joined in to stage the hunger strike. “We have missed births, funerals, years of our lives while sitting behind fences without having committed any crime.”

The hunger strike appears to transcend nationality, language and race, according to the detainees’ video, letter and report. The majority of the men who signed the letter are asylum seekers from a wide range of countries, including Russia, China, Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and others.

One of the lead organizers of the hunger strike, a Russian asylum seeker named Idris Makhmudov, has reportedly been placed in solitary confinement this week, according to Monica Whatley, an organizer in Georgia from the Campaign to Shut Down the Folkston ICE processing center.

The letter further reads: “We come from different countries, races, believes [sic], and background, but we share one thing in common: we came to the United States seeking protection and have been detained since then.”

The men say in their letter that they have been locked up for a long time, between 16 months and almost three years, from the moment each arrived in the US “yet have never been accused of any crime”. They argue they should be free while their legal cases go through the immigration court system.

“Many of us have tried every available legal path to seek release from detention” but without success, they say, adding that their letter is for those who believe in “fairness and human dignity”.

“Innocent people can remain in detention for very long periods, without any individualized finding that they are dangerous or likely to flee,” the signatories complain.

One of the men participating in the hunger strike is an asylum seeker from Yemen who is suffering from lung cancer and has a US citizen child, advocates told the Guardian.

The reports of the hunger strike at the Folkston facility represent the latest protest inside an ICE detention center, as the Trump administration continues with its aggressive anti-immigrant crackdown.

GEO Group referred all questions to ICE. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, did not respond to detailed questions about the allegations or requests for comment.

ICE, along with other federal agencies and local officials deputized to carry out immigration arrests, have been quietly increasing their arrests nationwide.

As a result, rising numbers of immigrants and asylum seekers are detained in federal facilities like Folkston.

The Folkston facility opened in 1997 but began detaining people in ICE custody in 2018. Last year, the Florida-based, for-profit company GEO Group extended its contract with ICE to expand the facility’s capacity. The latest ICE data from July of this year shows there were around 2,200 people detained there.

The majority of the detainees in Folkston who signed the letter are requesting asylum.

The open letter includes the names, government-issued alien numbers, countries of origin and time in detention for the 45 men who signed it. All have been in ICE detention for at least one year. A Chinese man named Liang Sonji, who signed the letter, came to the US and requested asylum in October 2023 and has been detained since.

“We understand that temporary detention may sometimes be necessary to verify identity or conduct background checks,” the open letter, drafted by Makhmudov, reads. “But detention lasting one year, two years, or longer without a clear individual justification raises serious questions about fairness and reasonableness.”

The two Russian men who also sent out a document about conditions – Alexei Kovalko and Alexander Borovkov – accused an unnamed medical staffer at the facility of telling one of them: “I have no obligation to treat you; the only thing that matters to me is that you don’t drop dead.”

Kovalko and Borovkov also write describing moldy food, foul smelling water, and other allegedly deficient conditions in the detention center, including leaky ceilings and problems with plumbing. The document also says that some GEO Group employees at the Folkston facility are “xenophobic” and rude, and frequently threaten detained immigrants with solitary confinement.

GEO Group and ICE did not respond to questions about these allegations.

There have been a series of hunger strikes inside ICE detention centers since the Trump administration took office again last year, some of which have received widespread attention. Earlier this year, a group of detainees inside the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey, which is also operated by GEO Group, launched a hunger strike. Protesters outside the facility, demonstrating in solidarity with the hunger strikers, were met with force by ICE and local officials, making international headlines.

Similarly, the Guardian has reported on individual cases of hunger strikes throughout the ICE detention network and the secretive response by ICE officials, including finding that ICE has quietly sought court orders to provide “involuntary medical procedures” on 19 hunger strikers since January 2025, including force feeding, a practice widely seen as torture.