Approximately 300 labor and community activists, including many PSARA members, gathered outside the ICE concentration camp in Tacoma, aka the “Northwest Ice Processing Center” on the evening of March 27. They gathered to express their collective outrage over the ongoing human rights abuses in the camp and specifically the summary detention of two labor activists, Alfredo ‘Lelo’ Juarez Zeferino and Lewelyn Dixon.

Dixon (known to loved ones as “Aunty Lyn”) has lived in the US for more than five decades. She works at the University of Washington Medical Center as a Lab Technician and is a member of SEIU 925. In early March,  she was abducted at the airport, returning from a trip. A family relative traveling with her waited for hours while she went through the security line with no information.  The family member was finally informed via a phone call  from Dixon that she’d been detained by ICE. She’s been held now for nearly two months

Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez is an organizer and member of Familias Unidas por la Justicia and Community to Community (groups primarily working in Whatcom and Skagit Counties). He came to this country as a young teenager. He was detained and sent to the detention center on Tuesday, March 25. According to witnesses, Lelo was on his way to drop off his partner at her workplace. When he stopped his car, ICE agents confronted him. Not leaving his vehicle, he tried to exercise his rights. But ICE agents broke his car window. At the rally, Lelo’s younger brother took the mic to thank attendees for showing up for his brother and to call for his brother’s release.

Unfortunately, these are only two of the estimated 1,500 people being detained in this prison camp, run by a for-profit private company, GEO, which is contracted by ICE. Despite right-wing rhetoric, this ICE facility, like hundreds of other such facilities around the country, is a site for civil, not criminal, detention. That is, those held in this prison camp are not detained because a court has concluded that they are a threat to public safety, nor because they have committed a crime, but simply because they are awaiting the outcome of their immigration proceedings.

There are nearly continuous protests and hunger strikes being undertaken by detainees inside this prison against their mistreatment. One reason for these protests is the fact that gross violations of international law are a matter of course there. The United Nations’ Standards of Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, known at the “Nelson Mandela Rules, explicitly prohibit indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement and the imposition of solitary confinement in the case of detainees with mental or physical disabilities. Despite this, however, ICE’s own data reveals that, on average, this ICE prison camp detains people longer in solidarity confinement than any other ICE facility in the country, and detainees are regularly subjected to the use of chemical agents.

PSARA activists in Pierce County have participated in many rallies and community events denouncing this prison camp in our midst. We have developed ties with other groups and activists working both to improve conditions for detainees while also calling for the place to shut down. A small but important piece of progress is a piece of legislation in Olympia, HB 1232, allowing officials from our state’s Department of Health to inspect the facility. This bill has passed both chambers in Olympia but with an amendment from the Sen- ate that will now need to be considered by the House. Please contact your state reps to urge them to pass this bill be- fore the April 27 end-of-session.