TACOMA, Wash. President Joe Biden signed an executive order this week ending the federal use of private prisons, but the order does not include privately run immigration facilities, like the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Formerly known as the Northwest Detention Center, the facility is run by GEO Group and is one of the largest in the country. .
File Photo / Zach Hirsch
Earlier this year, a man from Tanzania tried to seek asylum in Canada by crossing the border at Roxham Road, north of Champlain, NY. However, unlike thousands of others who had crossed in previous years, he was turned back to the U.S. under new pandemic-related border restrictions.
Canadian police gave him a piece of paper saying to come back when the border reopened, but returned him to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who detained him over lack of authorization to be in the United States. He was transferred to the federal immigration detention facility in Batavia, when he reached Jennifer Connor, executive director of Justice for Migrant Families in Buffalo.
A woman looks back before stepping into Canada at Roxham Road, back in 2017. File photo: Zach Hirsch
Dec 29, 2020 Earlier this year, a man from Tanzania tried to seek asylum in Canada by crossing the border at Roxham Road. However, unlike thousands of others who had crossed in previous years, he was turned back to the US under new pandemic-related border restrictions.
Canadian police gave him a piece of paper saying to come back when the border reopened, but returned him to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who detained him over lack of authorization to be in the United States. He was transferred to the federal immigration detention facility in Batavia, near Buffalo, when he reached Jennifer Connor, executive director of Justice for Migrant Families in Buffalo.
HeadlineDec 23, 2020
In Tacoma, Washington, the immigration advocacy group La Resistencia is reporting guards at the Northwest Detention Center have threatened a hunger striker with forced feeding. Victor Fonseca, an asylum seeker from Venezuela, has been on hunger strike for over a month, protesting the ICE jail’s dangerous conditions during the pandemic and demanding prisoners with underlying medical conditions be released. Fonseca is currently awaiting deportation. Here he is speaking from prison at the start of his hunger strike.
Victor Fonseca: “What do I have to lose? I have already lost everything. I lost my freedom. I lost my family, my children. Enough is enough. … I need to do this because, otherwise, I will die here.”
A fence outside of the Northwest Detention Center, recently renamed the Northwest ICE Processing Center, is shown on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, in Tacoma. Credit: KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer
Officials report low Covid-19 cases at Northwest Detention Center. But others say transparency is lacking Dec 16, 2020
Hope is on the horizon this week with the rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine. It s not, however, a silver bullet in this pandemic, and certain groups of people remain especially vulnerable. One such group is detainees at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
Esmy Jimenez covers immigration for KUOW. She s been reporting on the impact of Covid-19.