SEATTLE (AP) — Lawyers who sued the federal government on behalf of about 20 immigrant hunger strikers at a Washington state detention facility say their clients have been released from solitary confinement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Columbia Legal Services sued on behalf of the men, and say they were returned to the general population by Friday morning after six days in solitary confinement.

In the lawsuit filed this week, the lawyers said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were unlawfully retaliating against the men for exercising their right to free speech.

The agency denied that and said the men had been intimidating others to join their hunger strike.

The hunger strikers were protesting U.S. immigration law as well as the conditions at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

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