2 detainees at Passaic County Jail are in their 9th day of hunger strike demanding their release.  They are struggling for all the immigrant detainees who are being held as criminals and torn away from their families and communities.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formally INS) recognizes a hunger strike only after 72 hours. 

These immigrant detainees are being held in jail even though they have no criminal charges.

Rosendo Lewis is the Cuban detainee who was attacked by dogs at Passaic County Jail and is being held indefinately since Cuban detainees are not deportable.

Abdoulie Secka is a Gambian detainee who lost an asylum claim and is seeking to stay in the country with his American born wife and children.

These two men are committed to hunger striking as a way to protest the human rights abuses against immigrant detainees and demanding their release. 

They are both devout Muslims who feel spiritually guided in this struggle.

Rosendo and Abdoulie will be posting updates of their hunger strike every day to the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee website at http://www.nj-civilrights.org reporting on treatment by county  jail officials and by ICE.

For more information on the brutality at Passaic County Jail and the struggle for civil rights for immigrant detainees see the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee website at http://www.nj-civilrights.org  Immigrant detainees in New Jersey were just featured in a two-day long story on NPR, All Thing's Considered. You can listen to the story on our website.

Please send emails of support to Rosendo and Secka to info (at) nj-civilrights.org  

Press can contact NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee at 646-247-3238 to follow up on the story.