Observers said a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flight arrived over the weekend with dozens of people sent to a detention center in Tacoma.
||| FROM WASHINGTON STATE STANDARD |||
More than 100 detained migrants were flown Sunday to Seattle en route to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, according to an advocacy group that called the number of people on the flight “unprecedented.”
La Resistencia said the group of 110 people came from Phoenix on Sunday and was the largest the organization had seen on such a flight since it began monitoring arrivals and departures in 2023. The biggest flight La Resistencia said it had seen before had 53 people.
The immigrant rights organization reported the people exited the plane at Boeing Field wearing handcuffs and civilian clothing. Their countries of origin were unclear.
La Resistencia’s founder Maru Mora Villalpando said the Sunday flight was odd, as the flights usually arrive at the King County-owned airport on Tuesdays.
A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t respond directly to questions about the flight.
La Resistencia tracks flights coming and going from Boeing Field from a room inside the airport with a live camera feed. Usually, people arriving on flights are then loaded on buses and taken to the Tacoma facility, Mora Villalpando said.
The privately-run detention center is one of the biggest of its kind in the country and the only in the state, with a capacity of over 1,500 people. La Resistencia said the 110 arrivals would push the center’s population over 1,000, returning it to pre-pandemic levels.
Mora Villalpondo expects flights carrying more people to become the norm as President Donald Trump has promised to drastically ramp up deportations.
“This is just a sign of things that are coming,” said Mora Villalpando.
The Tacoma facility houses both locals detained for deportation as well as people authorities take into custody at the southern border and transport to Washington. Stays can range from a day to months or even years.
The GEO Group, based in Florida, operates the facility. La Resistencia has for years pushed officials to close it.
ICE has reported arresting over 800 people per day for the past week, up from an average around 300 before Trump took office.
The for-profit facility in Tacoma has long faced scrutiny over alleged human rights violations.
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights has found widespread use of solitary confinement, chronically unsanitary conditions and staff mistreatment of detainees. These conditions lead to frequent hunger strikes, including an ongoing one lasting over 40 days, according to La Resistencia.
“Now imagine when they reach maximum capacity,” Mora Villalpando said.
In the past, GEO paid detainees $1 a day for their work, including laundry, cleaning and preparing food. Last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed lower court rulings that found this practice violated Washington’s minimum wage law.
And a report last year found that those held at the facility spend more time in detention than the national average.
Two detainees reportedly died at the facility last year, one of natural causes after years in solitary confinement and another who was suffering from fentanyl withdrawal.
ICE and GEO have maintained that the center follows federal standards and have expressed their commitment to respecting the rights of detainees. GEO on Monday referred questions to ICE.
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This is unconscionable. How ironic that the descendants of immigrants – as most of us are – feel threatened by immigrants fleeing conditions that the detractors have not even bothered to learn about – how hypocritical. I’m troubled by this backwards definition of what is ‘manly’ and ‘strong,’ while we accuse other cultures of machismo.
I am unfortunately of white European ancestry. My grandparents emigrated to the U.S, fleeing dangerous conditions in their countries of birth, as many of the people coming in are. Looking at how these wealthy ‘men’ who are supposed to ‘lead’ us are behaving, I feel disgusted, repulsed, and more committed to help people who are their victims – or at least use my voice to speak out for the voiceless. I wouldn’t ‘follow’ them if my life depended on it. Their only aim is to treat people as garbage – cruelly and with no conscience – so they can profit more. Think they care about you? Ask yourselves, will AI help you keep your jobs that you blame immigrants for taking – jobs you never wanted to do yourselves anyway? Try not to be hypocritical and think from inside – not from outside propaganda porn you read or hear.
I’m proud to have spent my years being a laborer on the land, which is where my heart is. I have no money but I still have my soul. I knew many people taking the citizenship tests growing up. They knew more about this nation than I do, and lots more than their detractors know.
What have we become in this nation? None of this makes America ‘great.’ To put these people in ‘detention centers’ is inhumane. Everyone belongs. We ought to be protecting ourselves and others from unscrupulous, greedy mercenaries and investors who run the real narrative in this country. Please begin to wake up to what is being done to us to tear us all apart.
‘dying after years of solitary confinement’…keeping people weeks, months, years at this place or others like it?
Now ask how much profit the for-profit organization (GEO) makes by keeping people longer than necessary to be ethically processed.
Now remind ourselves that the taxes we pay is going to this for-profit business.
Now remind ourselves of our moral obligations…if we hold any.
Thank-you for sharing your thoughts, Sadie.
My great grandparents came to the United States from Scotland and Germany in the 1850s seeking a better life. They were fleeing poverty in Scotland and wars in mainland Europe.
The Founding Fathers and Mothers of our nation were immigrants fleeing persecution in England.
Our nation has always been a refuge. None of dynamics have been perfect. We are still dealing with the legacies of displacement of indigenous peoples and slavery.
But we did seem to be moving the Arc of History towards Justice until Donald Trump took over the Republican Party. Now our Constitution is being repeatedly violated. Our Bill of Rights has been thrown into the trash bin by the MAGA movement. Our government has been bought by the wealthy especially people such as Elon Musk who is taking a wrecking ball to our government, much as he did to Twitter. And the Republicans in Congress are filled with fear that they will loose their positions of power if they object to any of the irrational and destructive actions that have been implemented since Donald Trump took power on January 20, 2025, nineteen days ago.
You could have written “spineless Republicans in Congress, Janet, but that’s becoming an oxymoron.