The 13th hunger strike led by migrant inmates at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) demands the closure of the prison. The protest comes days after a fire broke out at the ICE facility, and less than a week after a plaque commemorating a migrant who died at the facility was stolen.
Tacoma, Washington – A group of forty to fifty migrants detained at the now-infamous Northwest Immigration Detention Center (NWDC) have announced the start of a hunger strike in protest of conditions inside the private immigration detention center. The protest explicitly opposes the renewal of the contract between ICE (Immigrationand Customs Enforcement) and the private penal company GEO Group.
The hunger strike – the 13th such protest at the prison so far this year – will take place in four of the prison’s dormitories, beginning the morning of Dec. 2. The strikers have issued the following list of demands to explain their direct action:
- An end to the contract between GEO Group and ICE, “because you can’t operate this place humanely.”
- An end to the use of solitary confinement. “It’s physical and psychological torture. It is used here even for minor infractions.”
- That GEO Group stop violating its own standards, “as dictated by the national guidelines for immigration detention centers. This includes:”
- Adequate medical care, including psychological care.
- Nutritious food (not expired)
- Right to in-person visits
- Respect for hours of outdoor recreation, “since we are entitled to four hours per day, but are only given one”.
- A cessation of all retaliation “when complaints are filed regarding violations of these guidelines.”
- Free phone calls and an end to price inflation at the police station.
- “Calls are prohibitively expensive. We should not have to pay a private company to contact our loved ones, attorneys and communities at large.”
- “We demand that the detention center stop selling food and basic goods at three times the market price on the outside.”
- ICE review of cases every 90 to 180 days.
The strikers’ demands assert several reports of human rights violations and ICE’s own standards, which have been revealed in previous hunger strikes and documented by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) – including poor hygiene and the provision of expired food. According to this investigative entity, “ICE’s own data reveals that the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma detains people for longer periods of time, on average, than any other ICE immigration detention center in the nation.”
The most recent UWCHR report shows that immigrants detained at the Tacoma detention center “are less likely to be able to bond out, tend to pay higher bonds, and tend to spend longer periods of time in detention than the average immigrant in detention nationwide.” As the strikers’ latest lawsuit makes clear, ICE tends to cut off communications with detained migrants regarding their cases, leaving them in GEO Group’s custody in Tacoma for indefinite periods of time.
The urgency of these demands, and the indifference on the part of GEO Group and ICE, are reflected in a series of fires witnessed by La Resistencia at the prison. On Saturday, November 30, volunteers from La Resistencia and other allied organizations documented a fire that spread through part of the prison. This is the second fire witnessed by the organization in person so far in 2024. The first took place on March 14. In both cases, no migrants or visitors were evacuated by GEO Group.
The Resilience learned of the most recent fire around 2:20 PM, when a caravan of emergency vehicles arrived at NWDC. Our volunteers counted between 10 and 12 vehicles, a figure later corroborated by the local emergency call log. Among these vehicles were five fire trucks and an ambulance. The latter left the facility with one person on board at 2:57 PM. GEO Group has not made any public statement about the identity of the person aboard the ambulance or his condition.
As the fire spread, no migrants incarcerated at NWDC were evacuated, but rather were taken back to their cells. Some La Resistencia volunteers were able to communicate with a group of migrant detainees who were in the outdoor recreation area. All denied any knowledge of the fire, which at the time continued to spread black smoke in another part of the prison.
GEO Group’s reaction is virtually the same as during the previous fire that occurred on March 14. That afternoon, La Resistencia was in front of the detention center protesting the death of Charles Leo Daniel, a migrant from Trinidad who died at age 61 in the prison on March 7, just a week earlier. As we wrote in a press release sent out during the encampment in memory of Charles Leo Daniel: “During the time we watched the fire spread, beginning around 5:30 PM, GEO Group did nothing to evacuate the detainees. In fact, those migrants scheduled to finally leave the prison were forced back inside.”
The hunger strike and fire come less than a week after La Resistencia denounced the theft of a metal plaque dedicated to the memory of Charles Leo Daniel. The plaque was placed there by the migrant justice organization, and was created in collaboration with the University of Washington-Tacoma and Monument Lab. The text on the plaque read: “Detained in solitary confinement for four years at Northwest Detention Center despite suffering from mental illness. NWDC detains people in solitary confinement for longer periods than any other ICE detention center.”
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La Resistencia is a grassroots political organization in Washington state led by undocumented people, fighting in solidarity with the people detained at Northwest Detention Center to permanently close the prison and end all deportation and detention.
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