Puedes leer esta carta en español aquí.
Translated:
Hi: my name is Servando Alonso Flores.
I’ve been detained in this detention center since December 26, 2016.
I’ve tried to solve my problem, and it hasn’t seemed possible to me until today.
I was transferred to NORCOR (Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility) correctional facility on May 25th, 2017 for organizing a hunger strike for better food and better medical services. The situation in NORCOR was much worse because it is a jail. The food is very bad. In the mornings, they’d give us four pieces of bread with peanut butter and jelly and a juice pouch. For lunch, we were given mashed potatoes and refried beans. Every day the service was bad and we didn’t have a microwave. We had to cook soup with hot water that came out of the sink. The commissary was very expensive, as was the telephone which cost forty cents a minute.
We decided to go on a hunger strike in NORCOR on November 18th, 2017 for four days. We asked for better food, books, yard access (as we had none), clothes (including socks and shirts), radio, Spanish-language television. We also asked for better treatment from officials as they treated us as though we were criminals for nothing more than the simple fact of being immigrants. In NORCOR, we were companions whose cases were on appeal.
They transferred us to NORCOR to get us to renounce our cases. It was difficult to be in that place and we suffered a lot, but thanks to the hunger strike there were many changes. Today they have microwave access, clothes, and better service. What I ask for is that no one be detained in NORCOR, for it is unjust. NORCOR is not a detention center, it is a jail. We have paid for our crimes. I call on the entire community to know what it is like in NORCOR jail.
ICE transferred me many times to Tacoma and NORCOR. For this reason, I was not prepared to present my case to the Immigration Court.
Thank you.
ATT:
Alonso Flores
A PDF version of the translated letter and the Spanish original can be found here.