Tacoma might get win over immigrant lockup staining the city: the ability to limit it
Jake Fey is resolute.
“It’s about local control,” the Democratic state representative from Tacoma told me during a recent conversation about his legislative effort to end the debate over whether privately owned and operated immigration detention centers are “essential public facilities.”
Under Fey’s HB 2640, they wouldn’t be.
Case closed.
In Tacoma, home of the facility formerly known as the Northwest Detention Center, the bill would have significant and immediate implications — likely more so than anywhere else in the state. With all due respect to Fey, who is both sincere and reasoned in his argument, that makes it about much more than local control, at least in the hearts of many Tacomans.
This is an issue with a stain on our community at its center, and the immense damage it inflicts is at the forefronts of people’s minds.
This is about an unconscionable mistake made by city leaders many years ago and the ignominious role Tacoma now plays in inhumane national immigration policy because of it.
First and foremost, this is about people’s lives, but it’s also about Tacoma and what we want the city to be and stand for.
If passed, Fey’s bill will essentially clear the path for the city to prohibit future expansion of the newly re-branded Northwest ICE Processing Center, which dates back to 2017.
According to Anita Gallagher, an assistant to the city manager for policy development and government relations, that would be “a huge victory” for Tacoma.
The GEO Group owns the facility and has predictably fought the city’s every effort to rein it in. The matter is currently tied up in Thurston County Superior Court, engulfed in legal wrangling over the definition of “essential public facility” under currently ambiguous state law.
Fey’s bill would settle the matter, across the state.
Recently, The News Tribune’s James Drew thoroughly laid out the arguments, the players and complexities.
For the average Tacoma resident, the stakes are plain and simple:
If Fey’s bill becomes law, the city notches a rare victory in its historically fraught attempt to assert itself against GEO and its private, for-profit detention operation.
The Northwest ICE Process Center, with a capacity of nearly 1,600, would be frozen in time, barred from expanding without explicit permission from the city and an extensive public process (which seems unlikely at this juncture.)
Meanwhile,Tacoma also could prevent future private detention centers from being built here, and, if the Northwest ICE Processing Center ever leaves, it wouldn’t be allowed back easily.
Now, is that a relatively minor achievement in the grand scheme of things? Undoubtedly. Codifying the status quo, given the circumstances, can feel a little hollow.
However, in a city full of people and elected leaders scratching and clawing for some modicum of power and influence over the facility — particularly amid the larger national immigration policy debate — it is something.
“It kind of got to a point where they just said, ‘Enough is enough,’” Gallagher explained of the City Council’s 3-year-old fight to pursue land-use changes to limit detention center expansion.
“It’s as simple as that,” Gallagher said. “It’s the one lever we had to pull, and the council pulled it.”
Politically speaking, the line Fey has walked thus far has been tactful and smart. He deserves credit.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 85-12, receiving support from both sides of the aisle likely in part because of the way the former Tacoma City Council member strategically framed it.
Fey purposely has avoided directly tying the effort to the rancorous immigration debate, he said, and instead focused on a message lawmakers from all over the state can get behind.
If a community wants and welcomes a private detention facility, fine.
If a city wants to say no, Fey argues it should have the right.
“This makes it optional. If a city wants to site a detention center, they can choose to do that, but they also aren’t forced to accommodate one,” Fey said. “Right now, a private prison or detention center comes in and gets to basically put a facility wherever they want without a whole lot of local say. That’s a problem.”
Consistent with this line of argument, Fey is quick to point out the absurdities of having a massive detention center on Tacoma’ Tideflats.
The area is almost solely industrial, lacks transportation and is smack dab in the middle of a natural disaster danger zone.
The list goes on.
While Fey acknowledged he has his own opinions on immigration, he deftly stayed on message.
“This is a use that we don’t want to keep growing in that particular area,” Fey said of Tacoma’s view of the Northwest ICE Processing Center. “So it’s very much about local control.”
Again, Fey is right. No doubt about it.
The amount of local control a city like Tacoma or any other has to determine whether it wants a detention center — and if it does, where it will go and how big it will be — is the overriding factor.
At the same time, you can understandably forgive regular Tacoma residents for feeling like just a little bit more is at stake.
This week, Fey’s bill emerged from a state Senate committee with a “do pass” recommendation.
“I think this bill makes it to the finish line,” Fey said optimistically. “I think it’s ready to move.”
Let’s hope, because a small win for Tacoma still counts as a win, especially considering the formidable opponent’s line of work.
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
