Following multiple lawsuits involving the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, state lawmakers are pushing again for greater transparency at the for-profit immigrant detention center.
House Bill 1232, sponsored by Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, would expand the definition of private detention facilities to include those run by nonprofit organizations. In fighting the state’s attempts at oversight in court, The GEO Group, which runs the Tacoma facility, claimed they were singled out by previous legislation.
“If they really had nothing to hide, they would have opened their doors,” Ortiz-Self said.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is the only privately run adult detention facility in the state. GEO operates the center under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Facility, near Spokane, is not-for-profit and would be covered by this year’s bill.
Through this legislation, Ortiz-Self hopes to demonstrate the state is not targeting a single facility.
“It’s really very simple, you do business in the state of Washington, you should uphold some basic human standards,” Ortiz-Self said.
“We would go after any other private detention facility,” she added, “but we don’t have any others.”
The bill also includes some changes to the standards the state is seeking to enforce at the facilities, sets out new civil penalties for violations, and would make inspection findings available to the public.
GEO did not return a request for comment.
Debate over the legislation comes as President Donald Trump has pursued a set of hardline immigration policies since taking office last month.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is the largest immigration detention site in the region, with the capacity to hold about 1,575 people. For years, it has been the subject of complaints over human rights violations.
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights has documented allegations of medical neglect, reports of sexual assaults, use of tear gas, lack of cleanliness, and unsafe food. People detained there have repeatedly gone on hunger strikes and there have also been reports of attempted suicides.
In 2021, the Washington Legislature approved a law trying to force the detention center’s closure, but it had to back down after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a similar California law.
Since then, a series of court battles have focused on a 2023 Washington state law — House Bill 1470 — intended to give state health and workplace agencies authority to conduct inspections at private detention centers.
Workplace inspectors from the Department of Labor and Industries did gain access to inspect the Northwest ICE Processing Center last year, following a court fight.
But GEO and the state continue to disagree over other aspects of the law, including whether Department of Health inspectors should have access to the facility.
“We want the Department of Health and Human Services to be able to go into that facility and make sure that human beings are okay,” Ortiz-Self said.
Revisions to required facility standards in the bill are somewhat nuanced. For example, House Bill 1470 required solitary confinement to be prohibited, mental health evaluations, and new clothing upon arrival. House Bill 1232 would remove this and other language, but it adds new provisions, like procedures to reduce the spread of diseases and more detailed food service rules.
Ortiz-Self said that the standards she’s proposed align with those for psychiatric hospitals.
The bill would also clear the way for the Department of Health to assess civil fines up to $1 million against facilities that don’t address problems identified during inspections. The money collected from these penalties will go to the department to provide training or technical assistance to the facilities.
To Ortiz-Self, this legislation is about preserving human rights.
“We don’t hear of that number of hunger strikes in our prisons,” she said, noting the frequency of hunger strikes at the Tacoma center. “We have a right to ask what is going on and when the answer is ‘you can’t come in,’ it makes us really suspicious.”
How much power the state has to regulate a facility involved in federal immigration enforcement has been central to the ongoing litigation.
Clashes over this and related issues continued Friday in one of the lawsuits stemming from House Bill 1470, with the state and GEO arguing before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Even before Trump took office, the U.S. Department of Justice sided with the company and against the state’s law.
Similarly, lawmakers opposed to the new bill argue the detention center is a federal facility and not a state issue.
“We would not have the health department go on to a military base to inspect the base, this is something we feel is similar,” said Jenny Graham, R-Spokane, in a recent committee hearing.
If the bill doesn’t pass this session, Ortiz-Self suggested she and other lawmakers would not back down from future attempts to regulate the facility.
“If GEO thinks we’re gonna stop and sit back and say, ‘Oh, well, we lost,’ I hope, after the third time, they realize we are not,” she said.
