Detainees at the Newark immigrant detention facility say they are refusing meals not only to draw attention to the miserable conditions inside, but because the meals themselves are one of those miseries. They describe spoiled and expired food, sometimes containing live worms, as one form of inhumane treatment, alongside inadequate medical care, unsanitary housing, and complaints about ignored due process rights. Detainees have also refused work assignments as part of the strike, according to advocates and participants who have spoken to the press about poor immigration detention conditions.

On the other side of the walls, tensions came to a head Monday as federal officers in tactical gear fired pepper spray and pepper balls at demonstrators who had gathered outside the facility, reportedly striking U.S. Sen. Andy Kim.

Federal officials have sent mixed messages about the strike due to poor immigration detention conditions. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said on social media there was “NO HUNGER STRIKE” at Delaney Hall, but later, White House “border czar” Tom Homan said that strikers would be force-fed “if it gets bad enough.”

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin split the difference on Wednesday, arguing that there were “only a handful of individuals” refusing to eat and that it was only because they wanted their “ethnic right food,” ABC News reported.

Mullin continued, regarding the poor immigration detention conditions: “Well, they can go back to their country and get whatever food they want.”

People in detention can, in fact, give up their due process rights and asylum claims and voluntarily elect to leave the country, and poor immigration detention conditions push them in this direction. This has been an important part of the Trump administration’s plan for scaling up mass deportations, as involuntary deportation is expensive and time-consuming. But the decision isn’t that simple for many people in immigration detention.

As the Arizona Daily Star reported this week, some detainees say returning to their home countries could expose them to persecution, imprisonment or death. The paper described an openly gay Russian man, an Afghan with ties to the former U.S.-backed government and an Iranian dissident, all of whom expressed fears for their personal safety if deported. All three described the misuse and overuse of solitary confinement at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona as a tool to coerce detainees into abandoning their immigration claims and leaving the country voluntarily, demonstrating the poor immigration detention conditions.

Read the full article about poor immigration detention conditions by Jamiles Lartey at The Marshall Project.