HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST DETENTION CENTER
NORTHWEST DETENTION CENTER
The Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) is the fifth largest ICE detention center in the United States. It opened in 2004 with a 500 person capacity, and has since expanded capacity to detain more than 1,500 people today. The facility stands on the ancestral lands of the Puyallup people.
LOCATION ON THE TACOMA TIDEFLATS
Before the detention center, the grounds housed a meat-packing facility for a century, and today stores mounds of contaminated soil from the neighboring property, formerly a coal gasification plant. The land has since been flagged as a toxic superfund site. In addition to being built in a liquefaction zone that would cause massive destruction and loss of life in the wake of an earthquake and/or tsunami, the NWDC is less than 50 meters away from a major e-waste recycler whose latest fire was in September 2019 (no people detained were evacuated), and within the "blast zone" of the massive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant under construction two miles away.
TREATMENT INSIDE THE NWDC
People detained at the NWDC are subjected to inhuman conditions including rotting food, maggots, dirty clothes, being forced to work for $1 a day, inflated commissary prices, assault by guards, and medical neglect. During the covid-19 pandemic, detainees are not provided with proper PPE, guards do not always wear masks, people are unable to socially distance, and information on their health is withheld from detainees. In addition, ICE uses harmful chemicals categorized as “pesticides” as response to covid-19, which give people detained nosebleeds, rashes and eye damage.
RESPONSE FROM PEOPLE DETAINED
People detained have launched numerous hunger strikes to protest treatment and demand release, and often are met with retaliation including transfer to solitary confinement. People detained have repeatedly made their opposition to their incarceration clear through hunger strikes, work stoppages, and other forms of protest. For many populations, including queer and trans people, people living with disabilities and serious illnesses, and people who are pregnant and/or parenting, detention brings extra forms of suffering that cannot be mitigated except by the closure of the facility.
COMMUNITY RESPONSE AND SOLIDARITY
LA RESISTENCIA
La Resistencia is a grassroots, undocumented-led, Washington state based organization that fights to end the detention and deportation of immigrants, particularly those who are detained in the NWDC. The organization was founded in 2014 in support of people who were detained in the NWDC went on a hunger strike to protest their confinement and the conditions in the detention center.
They have played a major role in the progress made towards shutting down the NWDC and obtaining rights for those detained. They pushed heavily for HB1090 that bans private prisons and will effectively shutting down the NWDC in 2025 when the state's contract with GEO is up. They also advocated for a trial in which the judge decided to require GEO to compensate detainees with minimum wages for the work they have done while detained.
OUR ROLE IN THE FIGHT
Advocates for Detained Voices (ADV) is a solidarity club at the University of Puget Sound focused on amplifying the voices of those affected by the system of immigration detention in the United States, recognizing the colonial and racist roots in place. We follow the leadership and work in coalition with La Resistencia, a local group led by undocumented people and people detained. The Northwest Detention Center exists only 10 minutes from the UPS campus.
As students at UPS, we recognize the privilege and resources all around us. Conditions in the NWDC are unacceptable. The food is inedible, detainees are denied access to due process rights, and are detained in a toxic superfund site deemed unfit for housing by Tacoma City Council. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a complete lack of PPE, care for the medically vulnerable, and no semblance of social distancing inside the facility. ADV exists to amplify voices of La Resistencia and those impacted by immigration detention.
