Folkston Hunger Strike Enters Its Second Week, and the Detainees’ Core Complaint Falls Outside the Supreme Court’s Bond Case

A hunger strike by detainees at ICE’s Folkston, Georgia, detention center, many of them asylum seekers, has entered its second week. Their central grievance, long detention with no bond hearing, is one the Supreme Court’s pending bond case is unlikely to resolve for them.

Detainees at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in southeast Georgia are in the second week of a hunger strike over conditions and the length of their detention, NPR member station WABE reported on Oct. 16. Many of those taking part are asylum seekers who say they have been held for months or years while their cases move through immigration court, and their complaint goes to a part of detention law that gives immigration judges no power to release them on bond.

The size of the protest rests on advocates’ estimates. Samantha Hamilton, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, put participation at about 372 men in two housing units plus roughly 150 more elsewhere in the facility as of Oct. 8, Georgia Public Broadcasting and The Current reported, drawing on detainees’ relatives and activists. A letter signed by 45 detainees announced the strike. GEO Group, the private company that runs Folkston, declined to comment and referred questions to ICE, which did not respond, according to the same reports. No official count has been released.

The protest comes as Folkston grows. The government has awarded GEO a $47 million contract to expand the center to 3,000 beds, which would make it ICE’s largest permanent facility, The Current reported. Nationally, ICE held 65,765 people as of July 11, 2026, and 70.6 percent of them had no criminal conviction, according to data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University.

Why a Supreme Court bond ruling may not reach Folkston

Detainees told The Emancipator that they are classified as “arriving aliens,” people treated in law as seeking admission at the border or a port of entry, and that they have been held an average of 20 months. That classification is what shapes their legal options. Under 8 CFR 1003.19(h)(2)(i)(B), an immigration judge may not redetermine custody for arriving aliens in removal proceedings. Release depends on ICE granting parole under section 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a decision left to the agency’s discretion.

The Supreme Court agreed on Oct. 1 to hear Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, but the question it took is narrower: whether section 1225(b)(2)(A) requires detention of people who are present in the United States without having been admitted. That covers the large group of interior arrestees who entered without inspection. A ruling for the detainee in that case would not by its terms reach someone classified as an arriving alien. And in Jennings v. Rodriguez in 2018, the Court read section 1225(b) as containing no implied limit on how long detention can last and no right to periodic bond hearings, sending constitutional claims back to the lower courts.

The practical effect is that the Folkston detainees’ best legal route runs through individual habeas petitions arguing that detention this long violates due process. Some have already filed petitions in federal court in Waycross asking the government to justify their detention, The Current reported. Those cases are decided one at a time, which is slow for people who say they have waited more than a year.

A hunger strike also triggers rules of its own. ICE’s 2011 detention standards treat anyone who has not eaten for 72 hours as on hunger strike, require a medical evaluation, and call for weight and vital signs to be recorded at least once every 24 hours. Involuntary treatment needs ICE’s authorization, and agency policy is to seek a court order first. ICE confirmed in 2019 that it was force-feeding detainees on hunger strike, NPR reported. Any similar request in Georgia would be filed in federal court and would become the first official account of how many people at Folkston have stopped eating and for how long.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

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Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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