Not on our watch, Tacoma: COVID-19 threat at migrant detention center is unacceptable
A clear case has been made by this paper’s Editorial Board and many others on the “ticking time bomb” that is the Northwest ICE Processing Center of Tacoma (NWIPC) during an infectious disease pandemic.
From a health perspective, any facility that confines people within a shared space is at great risk for a COVID-19 outbreak, even if at lower capacity and with pledges of increased sanitation.
The needless detention of people at that facility is not only a public health and safety risk, but a violation of human rights.
This is in line with the Federal Immigrant Release for Safety and Security Act (U.S. FIRST ACT) and with calls from the United Nations Refugee Agency and UN Network on Migration for the release of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants and to use alternatives to detention.
Our city leaders have recently recognized the threat the detention center poses to the people detained, to employees and to our greater community.
On Aug. 4, the Tacoma City Council unanimously passed Resolution No. 40636, which recognizes the abuses, sanitation issues and lack of transparency at NWIPC and expresses support for those “unable to protect themselves from the COVID-19 pandemic while in detention.”
Most importantly, the resolution calls for NWIPC to release all detainees and suspend all transfers and business activity during the pandemic.
It also recommends the Tacoma-Pierce Country Health Department use “its influence” with ICE to advocate for protections, and it commits the city to “continue to explore its authority” in the matter.
The City Council should be commended for passing this resolution. Yet it is incredibly distressing that our community and state leaders have consensus about protecting all people in our community, including those detained, but can’t make it happen.
Instead, they have to rely on “influence” and advocacy with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by issuing potentially hollow calls for detainees’ release.
In the midst of an unprecedented health emergency, why can’t local authorities immediately shut down a facility they deem to be a safety risk? How and why was this control surrendered to ICE, and how do we get it back?
ICE and its private contractors have the power to shut down NWIPC operations today; instead, they have chosen to put all of us at risk.
They have failed to protect workers and detainees from COVID-19 around the country. A U.S. House oversight committee hearing on July 13 revealed that over 900 employees and thousands of detainees at private immigrant detention centers nationwide have tested positive for COVID-19, resulting in at least three deaths of people in custody.
Contributing to these outbreaks is GEO Group, the company running the NWIPC.
The estimated number of active COVID-19 cases in the county has been rising since mid-June. The local Health Department reported 334 active cases on June 12, rising to 2,130 as of July 29.
Clearly, community spread is a serious issue. It can easily be transmitted from our community into NWIPC, to people whose control over their own safety and health was taken away.
We have a community responsibility to care for the safety and dignity of migrants and asylum seekers among us. Seeking a better life should never be a death sentence, in a pandemic or not.
I live just two miles from NWIPC and think daily about the mothers, fathers, sisters and uncles trapped inside. The fuse to the ticking time bomb has been lit.
The community and leaders of Tacoma must demand “not on our watch” and open the facility’s gates before the ticking stops.
Maryada Vallet of Tacoma is an international humanitarian consultant specializing in migrant and refugee health. She’s currently studying for her doctorate degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 12:00 PM.