It was a beautiful day in Tacoma, the winter sun glinting off the familiar downtown buildings rising above the port. In a nondescript corner of the industrial part of the city, the noise was deafening. Car horns blared, tin cans shook, metal spoons banged against pots and pans, dozens of voices yelled in some combination of joy and fury and a university student shouted pleas over the loudspeaker: “Free them all!”
This was one of many Solidarity Days held outside the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), organized by a local movement called La Resistencia.
What is the NWDC?
Established in 2004 and located fewer than two miles from the Tacoma Dome, the NWDC serves as one of the largest immigration prisons in the United States, housing approximately 1,575 detainees. The facility is privately owned and operated by the GEO Group in collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Detainees, such as Israel Arrascue, are in danger of lasting physical and emotional damage due to the inhumane practices occurring within the walls of the NWDC.
On Tuesday, Mar. 1, 2022, Arrascue was deported to Peru, leaving his daughter and family behind. He was left with only the $20 in his possession and no form of identification due to ICE’s practice of retaining all documentation of deported immigrants. In February, he was in the same condition as many fellow detainees: fearing for his life.
“I am a person with high risk to COVID, since I have had asthma all my life, blood pressure problems and I have pre-diabetes. I fear for my life, for the consequences that the disease may leave me,” Arrascue said in a video call with La Resistencia, prior to his deportation.
For cases such as this, especially where the detention center’s lack of distancing and basic hygienic and food safety pose a threat to a detainee’s life, ICE has the discretion to say whether someone is released or not.
Prosecutorial discretion
According to ICE’s website, “Prosecutorial Discretion (PD) is the longstanding authority of an agency charged with enforcing the law to decide where to focus its resources and whether or how to enforce, or not to enforce, the law against an individual.”
Despite ICE’s insistence to protestors that they are merely enforcing federal law, ICE indeed has total discretion over the fate of individuals detained.
“[They say] until Congress gives us different immigration laws to work with, you know, we’re just enforcing the law…they sort of drape themselves in the language of legality and the law to try to make what they do seem legitimate,” said Angelina Godoy, professor at University of Washington (UW) and director of the Center for Human Rights at UW, prior to Arrascue’s deportation. “ICE could choose to release Israel tomorrow if they wanted to, and the fact that they haven’t just means they haven’t decided to do so. That’s total discretion.”
Arrascue’s release wouldn’t have meant that his immigration proceedings ceased. His release would only have meant that he could continue proceedings in a safe environment alongside his family and 18-year-old daughter, who was only 16 when he was detained.
Criminal history and immigration proceedings
Arrascue was initially arrested for a non-violent crime for which he completed a two-month sentence. He has now spent more than two years behind bars. Therefore, he has technically been held for over two years on civil grounds rather than criminal, making ICE’s justification for his being held on grounds of criminality illegitimate, advocates say.
“ICE should utilize prosecutorial discretion and take into consideration mitigating factors, such as how long ago was the charge? How long was the sentence? What is the impact of this detention and possible deportation for their loved ones?” said Maru Mora-Villalpando, a local activist for immigrants’ rights and founding member of La Resistencia.
On Sept. 30, 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a memorandum directing ICE to utilize prosecutorial discretion to prioritize the deportation of individuals posing a threat to national security, public safety or border security. There are no categorical bars in the memo against eligibility for a grant of prosecutorial discretion for those with a criminal history.
Locking somebody up in a prison while they undergo a civil proceeding, not a criminal one, is rarely considered legitimate.
“[This is] just one additional way that the United States is far outside compliance with international human rights standards on this issue,” Godoy said. “I see no benefit of detention for anyone except the private companies that are profiting from his presence every single day that they’re able to charge the U.S. government and taxpayers to keep them locked up.”
This specific targeting of individuals with a criminal record steadily intensified over the course of Obama’s presidency, whose administration oversaw the deportation of approximately 3 million immigrants.
When activists and politicians who have been called on by La Resistencia to advocate for Arrascue’s release are informed of his criminal record, their initial enthusiasm has receded into silence.
“[We must] teach the community that when someone has a criminal record, this shouldn’t make them automatically disposable,” Mora-Villalpando said.
An individual’s documentation status and human rights are not mutually exclusive.
The thing about human rights is that they are deserved by all, regardless of documentation status. Beyond this foundational understanding of human rights, liberty comes in many forms.
“If somebody has irregular documentation status…there’s no problem with having that person go through an administrative proceeding to determine how to arrange their status and to contemplate whether they can stay in the country or not. Where it becomes a human rights concern is where the decision is made to deprive that person of their liberty,” Godoy said. “[In cases like Arrascue’s] this also means not only depriving their children the opportunity to be parented…but also the ability of someone to provide economically for their family and [Arrascue’s] own individual rights, to not be subjected to conditions of detention that we know in the Tacoma detention facility are particularly brutal.”
Free them all!
In April 2021, HB 1090 was signed into law, banning the renewal of contracts for the continued operation of private detention facilities, including the NWDC.
According to the original bill, the legislature found that “profit motives lead private prisons and detention facilities to cut operational costs, including the provision of food, health care and rehabilitative services, because their primary fiduciary duty is to maximize shareholder profits.”
This is a massive victory. However, the 10-year contract between GEO and ICE that was last renewed in September 2015 will not end until September 2025. Until then, it is our and our representatives’ responsibility to call for the closing of the NWDC every September (when the contract is renewed by Congressional approval of the annual budget) before 2025 as we believe human rights abuses continue to occur and families continue to be torn apart every day. Biden must also be pressured by our representatives to ensure he meets his promises of phasing out all private detention, and Homeland Security must ensure ICE is following the Sept. 30 memo.
“I fear for my family [whom] I miss and may not see again. I think it is sad to be locked up, but it is sadder to be locked up and feel that you can die without ever seeing your loved ones again,” Arrascue said.
Taija PerryCook is a student journalist attending the University of Washington, Seattle. Find her on Twitter @taijalynne.
Read more of the Mar. 16-22, 2022 issue.