An activist with La Resistencia holds up a protest sign during a press conference about “The Border is Everywhere” UW Center for Human Rights report outside of the Tukwila Department of Homeland Security building. Sept. 5, 2024. (Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)
Despite Washington’s progressive reputation, migrants held at Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center are less likely to receive relief from detention and deportation compared to the national average.
That’s according to a new report from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights, which analyzes data on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions from 2012 to 2023 and ICE detention placements from 2012 to 2024.
The data, the report says, “reveal ways in which the climate here is less welcoming to immigrants than other areas of the country.”
“Even states like Louisiana or Texas, states in which large numbers of migrants are detained, offer better outcomes,” the report said.
Migrants held at the facility — the only one of its kind in Washington — are less likely to be granted bond, more likely to pay higher bonds and spend longer times in detention than the national average, the report found.
Figure 13: Percent of Immigration Cases in Which Bond Granted, Washington and nationwide, FY 2012 – May 2024. Immigration bond hearing data is released by the US Department of Justice Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR) and analyzed by TRAC. (UW Center for Human Rights)
In 2024, the median bond amount in Washington was about $10,000, higher than any other rate in the nation by over $2,000. Nationwide, about 30% of bond cases were granted in the most recent fiscal year, compared to about 23% of cases in Washington.
Whether detained or not, migrants residing in Washington are also less likely to be granted relief from deportation in the immigration courts compared to the national average. From Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024, more than 75% of migrants nationwide granted relief from deportation. In Tacoma’s immigration courts, that rate was around 27%.
“All this information just confirmed that that place is the worst place in the country,” said Liliana Chumpitasi, an activist with La Resistencia, an immigrant rights group calling for the facility’s closure.
Northwest ICE Processing Center is a for-profit, privately-run facility with a long history of human rights abuses, many of which have been recorded by the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights, including inadequate food, rampant use of solitary confinement and mistreatment from staff. Hunger strikes to protest conditions at the facility, which is run by a Florida-based company called GEO Group, are common.
GEO and ICE have both repeatedly said the facility follows federal detention standards and that they are committed to respecting the rights of detainees in their care.
Some argue that closing the facility would mean migrants would be sent to facilities with fewer supportive organizations or more hostile legal systems — but Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, the UW center’s director, said that’s “simply not true.”
“The immigration courts that we have here in Washington and in Oregon don’t necessarily reflect the political culture of the place at all, and the data shows that the decisions made by those courts are more immigrant adverse than the national average,” she said.
GEO Group’s contract with ICE is up for renewal in September 2025. La Resistencia is asking the Washington congressional delegation to fight renewal and close the facility.
“We must also fight to dismantle the entire immigration system that criminalizes us, exploits us, surveils us, deports us and kills us,” said Chumpitasi.
Washington Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Adam Smith in July called for the closure of the Tacoma facility, as well as all for-profit detention centers.
Washington Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray supported an investigation into the facility’s use of solitary confinement in April after a detainee died in solitary confinement; Murray also requested a federal audit in July into health care services in ICE detention centers.
Staff for the two senators have also visited the facility in recent months, according to La Resistencia. However, it’s unclear if the senators support closing the facility altogether.
Cantwell and Murray did not immediately respond to a request for comment.