Georgia’s two U.S. senators have asked federal officials to determine whether officers at the ICE processing center in South Georgia, the nation’s largest, have retaliated against hunger strikers at the sprawling facility, including placing at least 13 of the protesters into solitary confinement.
The Current GA reported Monday that about 500 detainees had gone on a hunger strike in the first week of October to protest conditions at the Folkston installation and what lawyers representing some of the detainees say are violations of U.S. law for processing asylum seekers.
In a letter on Thursday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the agency’s inspector general, the senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, urged DHS to conduct an “immediate investigation” to ensure the facility, located 50 miles southwest of Brunswick in Charlton County, is complying with federal detention standards.
Their request follows what they described as “reports of medical neglect and retaliation by custodial officers in response to the hunger strike.” The alleged retaliation included putting at least 13 of the hunger strikers into solitary confinement, write Ossoff and Warnock, citing “reports from local advocates.”
The assertion that at least 13 detainees have been put into solitary confinement could not be independently confirmed, though the wife of one detainee told The Current last week that her husband, a hunger striker, had been placed in isolation. Attempts to contact detention center officials on Saturday were unsuccessful.
“We support Senators Warnock and Ossoff’s inquiry into the conditions at the Folkston ICE Processing Center. We are also deeply concerned about reports of punishment and retaliation against those speaking out. We hope this inquiry will be the first step toward transparency, accountability, and meaningful action to protect the human rights, dignity and well-being of every person detained,” said Daniela Rodriguez, co-founder and executive director at Migrant Equity Southeast in a statement to The Current.
Besides urging DHS’ inspector general to carry out an unannounced inspection of the detention facility, Ossoff and Warnock also asked Mullin to disclose how many, if any, of the hunger strikers have received a medical evaluation and how many, if any, have been transported offsite for hospital care.
Another death at Folkston
The reported hunger strike at Folkston and allegations of retaliation against participants again focused attention on the treatment of detainees at the installation. On Saturday, ICE announced that a 48-year-old Salvadoran man had died at the facility in the early morning hours Friday.
The man, Luis Sandoval, was found with a ligature around his neck at 1:46 a.m., ICE said in a news release. Despite receiving medical attention, he was pronounced dead 42 minutes later.
The statement did not say whether Sandoval was a current or past participant in the hunger strike. It recounted what it said was Sandoval’s illegal entry into the U.S. and his criminal record, and said an investigation into Sandoval’s death, including an autopsy, would be conducted, adding that ICE is “committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.”
Sandoval is the second person to die in custody at Folkston; Jaspal Singh died on April 15, 2024. Singh was placed under medical observation after complaining of chest pain and was later found unresponsive.
The facility’s medical care contributed to his death, according to an ICE review of the case.
A record of lax enforcement
The senators’ Oct. 22 letter is also addressed to J. David Donahue, the CEO of the GEO Group, which has operated the D. Ray James facility since 2010 and has operated the Folkston immigrant detention center since 2017.
In June 2024, ICE, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, awarded the Boca Raton-based company a new, $47 million contract to consolidate the installation — formally known as the Folkston ICE Processing Center — with the D. Ray James Correctional Facility. The contract called for expanding the resulting complex to accommodate 3,000 beds, which would make it the largest immigrant detention center in the U.S. and as of 2025, one of 20 ICE facilities the company operates nationwide.
The company has a record of lax enforcement of federal detention standards at Folkston. It received the highest number of violations during the first Trump administration, according to oversight reports examined and reported by The Current last year.
In 2019 alone, ICE inspectors recorded 38 violations, ranging from poor medical care and food handling to mistreatment of detainees from certain nations.
Some of those conditions appear to persist at Folkston.
“Some of us have been detained for months. Some people have been here for years. We are not serving criminal sentences. We are asking the United States for protection,” one of the detainees said in an audio recording obtained by The Current earlier this month.
“We are afraid that what inspectors see will not show how we normally live. We have serious concerns about the food, sleep conditions, medical care, and the length of our detention,” the detainee said.
Also, the current hunger strike at Folkston is not its first.
In 2018, Indian and other South Asian migrants at Folkston went on a hunger strike to protest their prolonged detention and to call attention to what they said was ICE’s inhumane practice of refusing to release individuals.
In their letter this week, Warnock and Ossoff ask Mullin to indicate whether ICE or the GEO Group has “sought or obtained any court order for involuntary feeding or hydration of any detainee.”
Polina Chertushkina, the wife of Andrei Gerdiukov, a Russian national detained at the facility, said that she is grateful for the intervention of the senators.
“I’m especially glad they addressed the issue of forced feeding, as my husband and other hunger strikers were moved to a different pod yesterday for medical examinations in preparation for possible forced feeding,” she wrote Saturday in a message to The Current.
