Tacoma ICE center detentions spike by nearly 50% since March, says U.S. Rep. Randall

The number of people held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma has jumped almost 50% in the past month, according to numbers provided to a Washington congressmember.

After visiting the immigration lockup Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Emily Randall said she “didn’t see any material difference” between the detention center and a prison.

The Tacoma facility is run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A private company, GEO Group, is contracted to operate the center. Both the company and the federal agency contend that the lockup is not a prison.

Conditions at the center have come under greater scrutiny as ICE has stepped up enforcement across Washington state as part of a nationwide campaign under the Trump administration.

RELATED: Peruvians in the Yakima Valley on edge after couple deported by ICE

“We are facing in our country a real war on immigrants,” said Randall, a member of the House Oversight Committee whose district includes Tacoma and the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas. “People who are being snatched up from their workplaces, from the sidewalk, folks who are afraid to go to the grocery store without someone else in their family or a neighbor or a friend going with them.”

Randall’s office said ICE officials told them more than 1,300 people are detained at the Tacoma center, up from 880 people reportedly held there in March. KUOW is waiting to hear back from ICE to confirm the current number of detainees.

About one third of those detainees are people labeled to more likely engage in criminal behavior. The remaining 65% are people like the 37 roofers arrested in a worksite raid, or a farmworker unionizer.

RELATED: Washington 'sanctuary law' allows ICE agents to pick up people leaving prison. They often don't

Randall said the medical staff at the facility, which was once understaffed, is now at full capacity. But she said the facility still has 40 open positions it needs to fill in other roles to serve its increasing population of detained people.

“I worry about… people's timely access to some of the services that are available,” Randall said.

A UW human right’s report says local police received six calls related to attempts at suicide at the Tacoma facility in early 2024. Researchers suspect two of those attempts involved the same person. A federal inspection report says detained people were placed on suicide watch seven times.

Separately, the federal report said detainees complained that they weren’t getting enough food. But government dieticians and an inspector found that meals served at the facility met “the U.S. recommended daily allowances,” and that the food portions were adequate.

Detainees are also facing having to wait for cases for months, and they face an uphill battle to get a bond. Bonds allow people to return to their daily lives as they await their cases. The Northwest ICE Processing Center is known for being a difficult place from which to get a bond. It’s facing a class action lawsuit based on claims that bonds are not being approved and processed fairly.

The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which helped file that lawsuit, said in a statement that “no other immigration courts in the country have adopted a similar policy of refusing to consider release on bond for persons who have been residing in the United States for years.”

RELATED: Midway through ‘a trip of a lifetime,’ a young British woman finds herself in ICE detention in Tacoma. Why?

The group said the bond process can take six months or more, and detainees are given no opportunity to challenge a judge’s decision on whether they are given bond.

As the number of people held at the Tacoma center grows, immigration hearings are taking longer to schedule, often leaving detainees in the center for months.

Randall also notes that the center lacks enough private rooms where lawyers can meet with detainees.

GEO Group’s contract with ICE to run the facility ends in September. Randall said she expects to see requests for expanding the facility in the coming months.