The state attorney general is targeting “unsafe, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions” at Tacoma's ICE detention center, as feds erode protections.
The GEO Group is back in the news, with the release of the latest in a series of reports documenting the unhealthy and inhumane conditions inside their Tacoma immigration detention facility, a new federal contract lowering protections for detainees, and a new lawsuit Washington State is filing against the company.
At the end of April, Governor Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown announced they were taking legal action against GEO Group, the operator of the Northwest ICE Processing Center, colloquially known as the Northwest Detention Center, a private, for-profit detention facility in Tacoma.
Meanwhile, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) released their newest report on the facility, attesting to insufficient internal response to reports of sexual abuse and assault inside the facility. The report also finds that the new seven-month contract extension between GEO Group and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) both lowers the standards for conditions inside the facility and decreases GEO Group’s accountability for what goes on inside.
Last week, Brown filed a motion in federal court to stop the GEO Group from blocking state health and safety inspectors from accessing the Tacoma detention facility. Inspectors from the state Department of Health (DOH) have been turned away from the facility on 10 separate occasions, in spite of state law giving them the legal right to enter.
Inspectors were responding to more than 3,500 complaints filed about conditions within the facility in the last three years.
“We have had literally thousands of complaints about unsafe, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions in this facility, and we need to investigate those allegations because these complaints paint the picture of neglect and cruelty,” Brown said at the press conference.
The complaints range from food, water, and air quality to unsanitary conditions to lack of basic medical care. Detainees say they aren’t allowed to meet their personal hygiene needs, aren’t allowed to do laundry, and end up with wet or dirty clothes. Black mold has been reported in the showers, which would likely constitute a violation of state building and health codes, if confirmed. One detainee allegedly wasn’t allowed to have the medication prescribed by a hospital upon his return to the facility.
Other complaints say that the food is contaminated, can appear rotten or undercooked, and contains bugs. The water apparently doesn’t taste normal, with a report saying that employees bring in their own water bottles.
“We also know we're getting lots of complaints about the water, and what that looks like to us is an older building that hasn't had its pipes well maintained,” said Lauren Jenks, the assistant secretary for environmental public health at the DOH. “We really even can see what parts of the building it is, if the complaints are accurate.”
There have also been reports of Muslim detainees not being allowed to freely practice their religion.
“I think you get a sense of the 3,500 complaints that we've received,” Ferguson said at the press event. “Washington state is being blocked from investigating these complaints. Washington state has a right to ensure the health and wellness of people detained within our borders period full stop, and we have the legal authority granted by the legislature and affirmed by the courts to inspect private detention centers like this one. I want to be perfectly clear: we will not allow GEO Group’s continued obstruction and brazen disregard for state law to go unchallenged.”
Two people have died at the Tacoma facility since 2024, and six people have tried to commit suicide.
While Ferguson talks a big game about defending the health and safety of the detainees in the Northwest Detention Center, he has yet to impose fines or push legislation upping penalties, as some advocates have proposed. Ferguson also has not moved to stop the Department of Licensing from sharing sensitive driver data with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. This data sharing appears to be contributing to the greater number of “non-custodial arrests” of immigrants currently happening in Washington State.
Malou Chávez, the executive director of the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, said the Tacoma facility remains one of the largest detention centers in the country, with over 1,200 people detained earlier in April.
“Importantly, one condition that we can't ignore is the number of deaths we are witnessing, and across the country, 2025 was the deadliest year in immigration detention in over two decades, and 2026 is shaping up to be even deadlier,” Chávez said. “The bottom line is that detention should not be part of the immigration process.”
This isn’t the first time the state has brought GEO Group to court. In 2017, the state began a suit alleging GEO Group was unlawfully paying detainees to perform work at the facility for only $1 per day. This case was consolidated with a similar case from the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, and a federal jury determined that GEO Group had violated the state’s minimum wage laws.
The GEO Group is currently seeking review of this case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The GEO Group is also being sued by three people who have been detained in the Tacoma facility and are alleging abuse that reveals a pattern of misconduct by the guards, misconduct the plaintiffs say is being covered up by GEO Group.
Meanwhile, detainees conducted nine hunger strikes in the first few months of this year and continue to protest the inhumane conditions in which they find themselves.
ICE contract goes backwards on conditions, accountability
The UW Center for Human Rights’ new report on conditions at the Northwest Detention Center both finds gaps in accountability for reports of sexual abuse and assault and analyzes the new interim contract between GEO Group and ICE.
Because federal statute establishes specific benchmarks around reports of sexual abuse and assault that apply to immigration detention, ICE has developed a set of documentation requirements around these incidents that loop in both GEO Group and ICE. However, the Center for Human Rights thinks some records they requested from this mandated paper trail might still be missing.
The report says there have been 229 known reports of sexual abuse and assault between January 1, 2015 and February 25, 2025. While the total number of reports and incidents remains unknown due to the incompleteness of the records received, the Center for Human Rights used the records it does have to try to understand general trends around these cases.
The report summarizes these trends into three main areas.
First, the internal investigations conducted around these incidents sometimes ignored key evidence. One case, for example, had conclusive DNA evidence, but the Tacoma Police Department took five months to send it to the lab and get results. In the meantime, the incident had already been classified as unsubstantiated. Another case was classified as unsubstantiated even though there were reams of communication records showing the existence of a romantic relationship between an employee and a detainee.
Second, each case is supposed to have an incident review with recommendations for improvement. However, the Center for Human Rights only obtained such reviews in 58 out of 172 cases, and only 5 out of 58 cases had any recommendations for improvement. No annual review appeared to be conducted that could shed light on whether any of the few recommendations have been implemented.
Third, personnel at the Northwest Detention Center don’t always notify law enforcement of incidents, even when asked to do so. Detainees don’t have the ability to call 911 for themselves and therefore depend on personnel for asking the Tacoma Police Department to investigate matters that might be criminal. However, staff often refuse to do so, saying the alleged abuse is “less than criminal,” even though the incidents fit under the definition of sexual abuse as defined in federal statute.
Meanwhile, GEO Group signed a new interim contract with ICE this March that will run through October 27. The News Tribune reported that the federal government will pay GEO Group $69 million for this seven-month contract.
The contract changes the set of guidelines by which the facility is expected to operate to a set that is considerably less strict and rigorous than the guidelines in the previous contract.
“The current contract may incorporate the weakest standard for conditions ever applied to the facility since its opening in 2004,” the UW report reads.
The report calls out the new standards’ explicit prohibition of following state and local laws, saying that if any conflict arises between local laws and federal laws, federal laws win out. This change appears to be a bid to prevent the state from interfering with the facility’s operations, including having the DOH perform random inspections.
The contract also repeatedly calls the Northwest Detention Center a “federal facility,” even though it is actually a private facility operated by GEO Group for profit.
The contract calls for the facility to have a detainee capacity of 1,635 even though it has historically only held up to 1,575, which calls into question where the additional 60 people will be housed. As these facilities get more crowded, general conditions tend to deteriorate.
Already the subject of hundreds of complaints, medical care standards have also been impacted by the new contract. Going forward, if any detainees are found to have a medical condition that requires care that can’t be provided by GEO Group, personnel are to inform ICE and request a transfer while permitting ICE “reasonable time” to respond. This “reasonable time” clause could further delay medical treatment for detainees, especially worrisome because many detainees experience medical emergencies while at the facility.
Transparency under the new contract is also worsened, with no public disclosures about detainee information allowed without ICE’s review and approval. Any detainee deaths will now be reported to the local medical examiner by ICE instead of by GEO personnel.
In the past GEO Group would have been the party held accountable in any litigation arising from facility operations, but that too has changed. Now as long GEO Group abides by the term of their contract, ICE will recommend the Department of Justice assist in legal action, for example by moving to have GEO Group removed from the suit or having ICE substituted as the defendant.
“While the body of research by UWCHR and other parties makes it clear that both ICE and GEO bear responsibility for poor conditions at the NWIPC, the marshalling of federal government resources and potential claims of sovereign immunity clearly constitute impediments to accountability for abuses at the facility,” the report says.
The report concludes that the new contract places any detainees held at the Northwest Detention Center in even more danger than they were previously.
Amy Sundberg
John Burbank (Guest Contributor)
