Russians held at U.S. immigration detention center plan hunger strike over poor conditions

Fourteen Russians held in an immigration detention center in the state of Georgia have signed a collective complaint about the conditions of their detention and announced that they plan to begin a hunger strike. Copies of the complaint were obtained by Vot Tak, Agentstvo, and The Insider. Four sources familiar with the conditions in detention confirmed the document’s authenticity to Agentstvo. Here’s what we know so far.Russians held in an immigration jail in Georgia say they are not treated for illness, are fed poorly, and have limited contact with the outside worldOne of the most serious allegations in the collective complaint is the lack of medical care. The Russians say that while detained, they receive almost no treatment. Emergency care is only provided in cases of loss of consciousness or severe bleeding. For fever, high blood pressure, or acute pain, detainees may have to wait “a week or more” for treatment.Alexei Kovalko, one of the authors of the complaint, said he once lost consciousness while having blood drawn. After he was revived, he asked staff to let him lie down, still feeling weak and dizzy. He was taken to a room that contained only a toilet and left lying on the bare concrete floor for several hours.Kovalko said an even more acute problem is dental care. “My personal experience: numerous complaints about tooth pain and requests to see a dentist have been ignored for almost two years. They aren’t even registered in the system,” the Russian wrote in the complaint.He and the other authors of the complaint also cite poor-quality water and bad food (they are mostly given canned and frozen food); cold cells (they have to sleep in their clothes); and noise in common areas (televisions there aren’t turned off until 2 a.m., which interferes with sleep, especially since earplugs are banned).The complaint separately lists problems with communication: paper mail is delivered selectively, email is unavailable, and phone calls are expensive. Many of the people held at the jail are going through court proceedings over their immigration status, and these rules severely limit their ability to communicate with lawyers and defend themselves.“The goal of this facility is to deport the maximum number of people and create conditions in which it’s impossible to defend your case in immigration court,” the complaint states. Its authors believe this is confirmed by the behavior of the detention center’s warden. He has repeatedly told the people held there that they will not be living in the U.S., and once told the Russians: “Don’t worry, we’ll send you back to your cozy Gulag.”The immigration jail in Georgia was converted from a regular prison. Conditions there have largely remained the sameThe immigration detention center named in the collective complaint is the D. Ray James Correctional Facility in Folkston, Georgia, named after a former mayor of the city. It is owned by GEO Group, one of the two largest private prison operators in the U.S.The facility previously operated as a federal prison. In 2025, it was converted into an immigrant detention center. The people held there are not necessarily criminals and are not serving criminal sentences; for them, detention means being deprived of their liberty over a possible deportation while their case is being considered in immigration court. In practice, however, conditions in detention centers can resemble those in prisons.Dmitry Valuev, president of the organization Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR), told Vot Tak that conditions in American immigration detention centers are difficult, but not everywhere are they as harsh as at the D. Ray James facility in Folkston.“There are select detention centers where vegetables and fresh fruit are given out regularly, even daily, but there are many others where fruits and vegetables aren’t part of the regular diet. The same goes for medical services — people with chronic illnesses suffer a great deal, because treatment in detention centers is mostly very basic, without advanced diagnostics,” Valuev said.He stressed that immigration detention centers are normally meant for short-term detention — up to several weeks — and that food and medical care standards there are designed with that in mind. In practice, however, people can remain in detention for years, and in those cases, the conditions effectively become torturous.Russians (and detainees from other countries) plan to start a hunger strike. They want to be transferred to another facilityThe collective complaint bears the signatures of 14 people. According to materials obtained by outlets that received a copy of the complaint, all of them are Russian. Among them are the complaint’s authors, Alexei Kovalko and Alexander Borovkov, and 12 other men who have been held in Folkston for five to 30 months. Kovalko, for example, has been in the jail for more than two years — 28 months.The Russians relayed through relatives that they plan to declare a hunger strike on October 6 to protest the conditions of their detention. According to them, about 50 detainees in total plan to take part in the hunger strike — not only Russians but also Latin Americans, Iranians, Afghans, Chinese nationals, and people from other countries.“Everyone wants to be released or transferred to other detention centers where they could get a fair hearing on their cases, bail requests, and petitions. At the same time, they’re demanding improved detention conditions,” Polina Gerdyukova, the wife of Andrei Gerdyukov — one of the signatories of the complaint who has been held in detention since February 2026 — told the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo.The flow of Russians seeking asylum in the U.S. increased after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. People who end up in immigration jails are usually those who crossed the border from Mexico and requested asylum in the U.S., or who were detained later while already in the country. As of spring 2026, RADR estimated the number of Russians in U.S. detention centers at 700–800 people.After Donald Trump returned to power, U.S. authorities began detaining and deporting foreigners more aggressively. RADR believes that around 300–400 Russians may have been deported over the past year alone. They are being sent back to Russia even though they may face criminal charges or military conscription there.At least two cases are known in which Russians who had sought asylum in the U.S. were detained on criminal charges after being deported back to Russia. The first involves serviceman Artem Vovchenko: after arriving in Russia, he was sent to a pretrial detention center on charges of abandoning his military unit, but he managed to get transferred to a civilian hospital and escaped from there. The second case is the prosecution of businessman and activist Leonid Melekhin, who was ultimately sentenced to six years on charges of justifying terrorism.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.