Immigrants held at the GEO Group’s privately owned North Lake Processing Center went on hunger strike starting Monday, April 20, 2026.
“We demand competent doctors, better medical care — the food here is absolute garbage — and, above all, an end to the procedural delays we are suffering through inside these walls,” said one immigrant detained at North Lake, in a translated statement. “We are being held prisoner arbitrarily. The majority of us meet all the requirements to be released, yet judges capriciously deny us bond and the basic rights to which we are entitled. We need to get out of here and to be treated like human beings.”
The hunger strike, now concluded, represents a response to the violent trends in ICE activity across the region and the country — with deaths in ICE detention now at a record high— the continuation of a long history of unrest at this isolated Northern Michigan prison, and the even longer legacy of tactic the hunger strike.
Built in 1999 as the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility, North Lake has closed and reopened four times. Its previous incarnation as an immigrant-only federal prison from 2019-2022 saw multiple deaths as well as six separate hunger strikes, primarily organized by Black men confined in the Restricted Housing Unit, who named similar concerns relating to medical neglect, inadequate food, and abuse from staff.
Since reopening in June 2025 as the largest ICE detention center in the Midwest, North Lake has consistently imprisoned over 1,000 people, including hundreds found by federal judges to have been unlawfully detained.
In mid-April, a group of over a dozen women in a separate unit filed a joint habeas corpus petition, recounting their conditions of confinement and constitutional violations. These worsening conditions have led to heightened alarm as ICE seeks to expand its presence in Michigan further with the February purchase of a warehouse in Romulus, in spite of massive community opposition.
“The prevailing feeling is one of deep discontent regarding the injustices faced in immigration courts,” another person detained at North Lake observed through a translator. “There are complaints regarding the lack of expediency in case processing, a lack of sound judgment and impartiality in judges’ rulings, the mass denial of cases, and a lack of legal aid. Immigrants are being treated as ‘blank checks’—exploited as a source of revenue for this private detention company. Please help us address the injustices currently taking place here.”
Quotes and statistics sourced from No Detention Centers Michigan.
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