and alexis erickson is the partner of hunger striker cristian lopez.stian was part of the hunger strike in the northwest detention center in tacoma, before he was transferred to a jail in nenew mexico where he is continuing the strike. he's facing deportation to mexico. we welcome you both to democracy now! let us begin with maru mora villalpando. tell us exactly what you understand is happening in tacoma. >> we have now hundreds of people deciding to stop eating since monday afternoon. people over from the week and a detention they were getting ready for the hunger strike. if you think about the maximum know it is675, we over capacity. when we heard about over 100 people, maybe more were getting ready to strike, we were there ensuring we would support that. throughout the week, we saw numbers increasing and increasing, more and more people start joining. yesterday morning, we heard from the women's section saying they were ready to also join me strike. we heard from one of the area [inaudible] they were being threatened of being transferred to a count