(Image source from: Newsweek)

Umpteen people in support of confined immigrants demonstrated outside the Otay Mesa Detention Center on Sunday morning

Speaking out against the separation of migrant children from their parents, protesters as well call for reinforced conditions inside the detention center.

"The medical facilities are inadequate," Jennye Lopez, a 24-year-old asylum seeker from Honduras, said in Spanish. She recently was released from Otay Mesa after spending six months in custody.  

In a statement, Core Civic, the detention center's operator, spokeswoman Amanda Gilchrist said the company does not provide medical services at the Otay Mesa facility and staff is trained to refer any medical issues to ICE Health Service Corp.

"Our immigration facilities, including Otay Mesa, are monitored very closely by the government, and each and every one is required to undergo regular review and audit processes that include ensuring an appropriate standard of living for all detainees," she said in the statement.

"More than 500 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are currently assigned to CoreCivic’s eight detention facilities. This includes full-time, onsite monitors that ensure real-time accountability and ease of communication," she added.

While Lopez waits for her succeeding immigration hearing, she has to wear a GPS tracking device on her ankle.

She was part of a migrant caravan earlier this year and she came to the United States to escape gang ferocity in her home country which was extorting her menage.

"They know we’re not criminals," she said. "We’re just leaving our country that has so much violence."

Organizers of the Sunday's protest allege there were family separations and other maltreatment have gone on inside the detention center.

"People don't care about immigrants and the government has this whole rhetoric that seeks to criminalize them and dismiss any claims against the government that they're putting forward," said David Abud, one of the organizers of the protest. "So I think that's really why but it should be these are things that should be causing more nationwide outrage."

By Sowmya Sangam