Detained immigrants at the Essex County Jail in Newark are on a hunger strike, demanding release on bond or deportation to their home countries because they fear dying inside from Coronavirus, according to their attorneys, jailhouse advocates, and detainees who spoke to Gothamist/WNYC.

At least 10 detainees in the 2B3 pod started the strike on Tuesday, passing a note to other detainees in less restrictive dormitories, who agreed to join in on Wednesday. Detainees and advocates believe hundreds could end up participating, refusing meals in order to send the message that Immigration and Customs Enforcement should release them before the virus spreads rapidly and uncontrollably within the close quarters of detention.

“If we get sick, at least we’d be able to be with our families before we die,” said Julio Colcas, 55, a father of two who has spent almost two years at the jail. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

Colcas suffers from a variety of mental illnesses and struggled with drug addiction when he lived in Queens and New Jersey. After he served time for a 2017 drug charge, ICE sought to strip his Green Card and sent him to the county jail to await deportation, which he is currently appealing. But he said if he was released with an electronic ankle bracelet—as was common practice before the Trump administration—he’d show up to his court dates. “I’ve been here [in the United States] 39 years,” he told Gothamist/WNYC. “I’m not gonna run.”

Benny Munoz, a tier representative for his unit of the jail, has spent most of his life in the United States and was also a Green Card holder. Like many at the Essex jail, he got caught in the immigration dragnet because those convicted of crimes can be deported. So after finishing a sentence for possession of a weapon and hindering apprehension, he was transferred to the jail in October on deportation proceedings. Munoz said he expected all of the nearly 50 men in his dorm to start the hunger strike Wednesday night.

“A lot of guys—they’re done with their time, they’re finished paying off whatever their debt was to society, and we’re here being held against our will by the government and Immigration [and Customs Enforcement], it’s crazy,” he said. “They could let us go home on bail, and we could fight our case from the streets...No one wants to die in jail.”

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Munoz said the biggest reason they want to be immediately released is the fear of being locked up when getting “bad news”—that of a loved one dying of COVID-19. “I don’t even want to think about it,” he said. Munoz has a wife and five-year-old daughter in New Jersey. “We’re trying to be home with our families, that’s the bottom line, this is what it is, in case I do get sick, and one of my family members gets sick.”

Officials in Essex County and ICE’s Newark field office both said they are monitoring the situation. An ICE statement also said the agency is “coordinating with Essex County Correctional Facility officials.” Essex County has a multimillion dollar contract with ICE to detain immigrants awaiting hearings or deportation.

According to ICE’s guidelines, detainees who do not eat for 72 hours must be referred to the medical department for evaluation. Detainees who refuse food for long periods of time are held down and force fed through tubes in the nose.

The detainees are well aware of the COVID-19 through phone calls home and TVs at the jail, which are often tuned to the news. The jail, like ICE facilities nationwide, has already shut down its barber shop and recreational services, and banned visits from loved ones.

Colcas said corrections officers are now wearing gloves, and Lysol is sprayed on door knobs. But he recently got a sore throat, which concerns him.“It's just scary being in here,” he said.

Colcas and Munoz said one issue is that ICE keeps bringing additional detainees into the jail, potentially exposing staff and detainees to carriers of the virus.

In fact, ICE operations through Wednesday were continuing as usual. Three people were arrested in early morning operations on Staten Island, ICE told Gothamist/WNYC. One had been deported twice before, and two others had pending criminal charges but were out on bond or their own recognizance. No more information was provided, but witnesses who spoke to the Immigrant Defense Project said in two cases ICE agents wore plainclothes and identified themselves as police.

Genia Blaser, senior staff attorney at the Immigrant Defense Project, called this “alarming” because the arrests come as schools are closed and officials are encouraging people to self-quarantine. “And yet ICE officers are just as aggressively going out there arresting noncitizens, pretending to be police, and they’re putting people into detention where there’s a lot of concern about coronavirus and what’s going to happen there,” she said.

On Wednesday night, ICE announced that it would begin limiting—but not ending—arrests.

Lawyers for detainees released the note that was circulated around the jail to encourage people to join the hunger strike. It reads, in part: “We are asking our fellow brothers in ICE to join us. We are also asking the kitchen workers that work in the main kitchen downstairs to not go to work. The point of this is to ask for release…This Coronavirus is getting out of control and if we were to be infected I am sure everyone would rather die on the outside with our families than in here....I hope you will join us because there is power in numbers and this is a fight not only for our freedom but also for our health and safety.”

The hunger strike comes as concerns over COVID-19 among detained immigrants ratchet up. A staffer at the private detention center in Elizabeth, N.J. and two detainees at the Hudson County jail have been tested for the virus and are awaiting results. In recent days, a correction officer and an imate at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the officers’ union. Nationally, ICE says there are no confirmed cases at its facilities.

Meanwhile immigration attorneys are stepping up legal efforts to force the release of detainees. Gothamist/WNYC reported Tuesday how New York immigration attorneys are petitioning ICE to release elderly and medically vulnerable detainees held at the four county jails in the area where they’re held. They’re also filing habeas corpus lawsuits in federal court arguing that continued detention is illegal.

Those attorneys, who are part of the city-funded New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, released a scathing statement Wednesday detailing the hunger strike and alleged conditions inside the jails. “We are now receiving multiple reports from the detained people we represent and their family members that they are being subjected to dangerous conditions throughout these jails, putting them at further risk of contracting and spreading the COVID-19 virus,” the attorneys said.

In addition to Essex, the attorneys alleged that those held at the jail in Hudson County do not have enough access to soap and cleaning materials, and that medical care has been restricted. A Hudson County spokesman said there’s plenty of soap in the facility.

At the Bergen County Jail, there are reports of new detainees being forced to stay in their cells for a full week. A spokesperson there denied that.

In Orange County, N.Y., a corrections officer at the jail allegedly taunted a detainee with hand sanitizer, which incarcerated people are not allowed to have because of the alcohol content. An official there did not return a call for comment.

Matt Katz reports on air at WNYC about immigration, refugees, hate, and national security. You can follow him on Twitter at @mattkatz00.