Almost 30 immigrant women being held at the T Don Hutto immigration detention center in Texas have begun a hunger strike.

Starting last Wednesday, at least 27 women refused their dinners in protest of the conditions at the so-called "residential center" 35 miles from Austin, said the Texans United for Families, according to The Guardian.

A civil rights group, Grassroots Leadership, also published 17 handwritten letters by the women expressing outrage over their ongoing incarceration, inedible food, poor medical care and harsh treatment.

"The food they give us is very foul," one woman wrote. "Every time I eat it, I experience lots of stomach pain. There are full days that I don't eat anything and being locked up is also causing me much depression."

"The only thing that we ask is an opportunity," reads a letter by another woman. "We have rights being the human beings that we are."

Other women said they are fear of being forced to return to their countries in Central America, where some say they faced domestic violence.

"They leave us in here while fighting the case and at the end they tell us that our case has been denied after keeping us locked up for a long time and they send us back. Also, the food they give us here is very bad, gives us stomach problems, and is almost always the same. All human beings have rights and opportunities in this country and we believe that we have a right to bail," wrote a woman named Patricia from El Salvador.

"There are grave injustices being committed, detentions spanning eight months, 10 months, a year, a year and a half, just to end with them telling us that we have no rights and we will be deported with disdainful words and gestures to make us feel worthless," said Magdrola, a woman from Guatemala, in a letter.

A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fusion that administrators were not aware of a hunger strike at Hutto, which is run by a private company called the Corrections Corporation of America.

"ICE takes the health, safety, and welfare of those in our care very seriously and we continue to monitor the situation. Currently, no one at the T Don Hutto Detention Center was identified as being on a hunger strike or refusing to eat," said ICE.

"That's what they always say," said Cristina Parker, who works for Texans United for Families, in response. "It doesn't surprise me that ICE would say that."