House approves bill to ban expansion of ICE detention facility in Tacoma

The Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma would not be allowed to expand under a bill that the state House of Representatives approved Wednesday.

If it becomes law, HB 2640 would declare that the privately owned and operated immigration detention center is not an “essential public facility,” enabling the city of Tacoma to block further expansion of the facility, said Rep. Jake Fey, the bill’s sponsor. The GEO Group runs the facility for the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

The House voted 85-12 to approve the bill, which moves to a Senate committee.

The state Growth Management Act considers essential public facilities as projects that are difficult to site such as airports, regional transportation projects and prisons. If those projects are deemed to be essential public facilities, they cannot be blocked by local governments.

At a Jan. 28 committee meeting, Fey said the detention center has been expanded multiple times and holds 1,600 people. In those remarks and on the House floor, he did not refer to the controversy over the role that the detention center plays in the federal government’s immigration policies.

Fey said the detention center has no access to public transit and is in the middle of the Port of Tacoma and an industrial area.

Steve Victor, deputy city attorney for the city of Tacoma, said the city council has changed the zoning of the port maritime district to prevent siting of future privately operated detention centers and prohibit expansion of the current facility.

The GEO Group appealed the council’s decision to the Growth Management Hearings Board, which initially said the issue was a legislative matter. That decision was appealed by GEO to Thurston County Superior Court, which returned the case to the Growth Management Hearings Board. The board decided that the detention center is not an essential public facility. GEO has filed another appeal with the Superior Court.

Joan Mell, an attorney representing GEO, urged lawmakers at the committee hearing to block the bill.

“It’s the facility that you need. It’s the facility that’s setting precedent across the nation for how to do it and how to do it right. Declaring now that its not an essential public facility, in confusing language, sets you down a road you don’t want to go,” she said.

This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 1:02 PM.