Group signs $69M extension to run Tacoma immigration detention center
The GEO Group, a private contractor that runs the Tacoma detention center housing immigrants facing possible deportation, has signed a six-month extension of its 10-year contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The activist group La Resistencia, which has long called for the detention center to be shut down, announced the news Wednesday and said there were no changes from the previous contract. La Resistencia said the total contract value was more than $69 million.
The GEO Group directed questions about the contract extension to ICE, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A contract award listed on SAM.gov, a government contracting website, showed that the agreement was signed March 27, and that it covered work until Oct. 27. A description of the contract said it was to provide comprehensive housing at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
News of an extension indicates that a finalized contract is still to come. The GEO Group’s 2015 contract was set to expire in September, but neither the Florida-based company, which operates detention facilities around the world, nor ICE, have made any public comments about a new agreement.
Under the 2015 contract, according to court documents, the GEO Group was to be paid a little more than $700 million, or about $70 million a year, to operate the 1,575-bed facility on the Tacoma Tideflats. According to ICE data, the average daily population of the detention center was 1,372 at the start of February. Data shows 70 percent of those detainees are classified as non-criminal.
The exact value of the six-month extension contract is $69,061,134.27.
La Resistencia’s announcement called the detention center “infamous” for inhumane conditions such as inedible food and medical neglect and its use of solitary confinement. The NWIPC has faced criticism since it opened in 2004, and detainees there have frequently taken part in hunger strikes as a form of protest over conditions or access to information about their immigration cases.
On Wednesday, La Resistencia said so far this year there have been 12 hunger strikes undertaken by people detained at the facility.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has also spent years documenting conditions at the detention center, including allegations of medical neglect, sanitation issues, use of solitary confinement and police responses to reports of abuse and assault.
When UW released a report in April 2025 that said it had identified “patterns of neglect” in police responses to the facility, the GEO Group responded by stating that it had comprehensive policies in place for the reporting and investigation of all incidents that occur there and that the policies are governed by Performance-Based National Detention Standards established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, a Democrat who represents Washington’s 6th Congressional District, conducted an oversight visit at the facility March 31. In a video ahead of her drop in, Randall said she had done four unannounced visits and been turned away twice. She said she was going there to learn about the conditions and detainees’ access to food and hygiene products.
Her visit came after a federal judge on Feb. 2 blocked a policy restricting members of Congress from making unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities. After Randall visited the detention center in Tacoma last week, she said in a video that she sat down with two men who were detained there. Randall said one of the men had struggled to access the health care he needed.
