Right in front of the tall barbed-wire fence surrounding ICE’s Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) is a tent filled with flowers, garlands, candles and a bright yellow sign commemorating the life of Charles Leo Daniel. The 61-year-old died on March 7 and now two months after his passing, local advocates are pressuring the detention center to answer their questions about the cause.
Detainees within NWDC were able to inform La Resistencia, a grassroots organization working to abolish local immigration detention centers, of Daniel’s death. On March 12, ICE released a press statement that confirmed Daniel’s death. In April, ICE released a death report detailing the emergency services provided to him on his final day. However, the report doesn’t specify Daniel’s cause of death.
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) revealing that NWDC held Daniel in solitary confinement for 811 days, making it the second longest isolation period recorded in the U.S. NWDC has held four other detainees in long-term solitary confinement, each ranging from 500 to 800 days.
In its report, the UWCHR argues that the detention center’s practice of holding detainees in extended years in isolation violates the United Nations’ “Standards of Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners,” which says a prison can’t keep a detainee in solitary confinement for more than 15 days. The UWCHR’s report states that three of the NWDC detainees in solitary confinement, one of whom was Daniel, had some form of mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, subjecting a person diagnosed with a mental illness to long periods of isolation negatively impacts their mental state.
UWCHR director Angelina Godoy says solitary confinement is a way for NWDC to control detainees. Godoy and her team were able to identify Daniel and his solitary confinement sentence by cross referencing documents they received through FOIA and records released by ICE. Godoy said although Daniels’ death was shocking to find out about, it was foretold due to the years of research UWCHR accumulated on NWDC’s deteriorating conditions.
NWDC has been operating out of Tacoma since 2004, and throughout that time, detainees have shared their experiences of maltreatment by ICE and the conglomerate that operates the facility, Geo Group. Wendy Pantoja, executive director of La Resistencia, said being in solitary confinement and suffering for that long is a violation of a person’s basic human rights.
“It’s irresponsible,” said Pantoja. “These are human beings; they have lives. [ICE and Geo Group] aren’t treating them like human beings. Many people in the detention center have explained to us that they’re being treated like animals. This is a profiting facility that doesn’t require the state to investigate, so they can do whatever they want to the detainees. How do you know if this corporation isn’t abusing people?”
Pantoja says La Resistencia receives calls every day from detainees who express suicidal ideation due to the brutal and abusive environment that ICE and Geo Group force them to endure. The UWCHR obtained from Pierce County’s South Sound dispatch center logs of six emergency calls made between January and March 2024 regarding NWDC detainees’ suicide attempts. Between 2017 and 2023, 685 emergency calls were made from the center, 12 of which were classified as suicide attempts, according to the UWCHR’s report.
In 2021, Washington legislators banned the operation of privately owned detention centers, which resulted in NWDC being scheduled to close down in 2025. However, Geo Group bypassed the law through the Ninth Circuit court’s ruling that stated states cannot interfere with federal government jurisdiction.
Daniel’s death isn’t the first case of a detainee dying in custody at NWDC, according to Pantoja. Mergensana Amar, a Russian asylum seeker, died by suicide on Nov. 18, 2018. FOIA documents revealed that, after being transported to St. Joseph Medical Center, Amar was kept restrained to a hospital bed three days after being declared dead. ICE wouldn’t release a death report on Amar until Nov. 26, eight days after his passing. ICE’s own policy requires the department to release death reports within two business days.
Leading up to his death, Amar was one of many detainees on a hunger strike demanding better food, conditions and pay for work at NWDC, as well as immediate release. The UWCHR cites reports from detainees who say their food was in a state of decomposition or infested with worms. Detainees also disclosed receiving soiled undergarments after requesting clean ones. Additionally, Pantoja said that detainees complained about experiencing severe allergic reactions when certain cleaning products were used in their rooms.
Real Change reported on the hunger strikes in 2023, where 115 detainees demanded improved food quality, consistent sanitation services and access to medical and dental services. A year later, detainees are conducting hunger strikes over the same demands.
“Geo Group and ICE consider engaging in a hunger strike as a facility order threat,” Godoy said. “They consider it a threat and therefore grounds to place somebody in solitary confinement. Another way that they deal with detainees on hunger strike is through physical violence or the deployment of chemical gas. In 2023, detainees were beginning to organize, and GEO Group sent in a squad with gasses.”
Chanell Matthews, one of the detainees participating in the hunger strike, was on her 20th day of refusing food as of May 3. Matthews provided La Resistencia with updates about her conditions after being placed in medical isolation despite her protesting that there was nothing wrong with her. La Resistencia shared online recordings of calls with Matthews, publicizing the detainees’ demands. The group is looking for an end to the use of solitary confinement, closing down the detention center and a full independent investigation of Charles Leo Daniel’s death. U.S. Senators Pat Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Reps Pramilla Jayapal and Adam Smith sent letters to the Department of Homeland Security requesting for an investigation into NWDC to be launched but Godoy said that’s not enough.
“Washington is passing legislation, but then those laws are getting bogged down in the federal courts,” Godoy said. “There is no excuse for local authorities in Tacoma to withhold information. The Tacoma medical examiner is working on a report about Mr. Daniel’s death, but we have no idea when that’s going to be released. The Tacoma Police Department also has the legal jurisdiction to launch an investigation of this death, which happened in their own jurisdiction. It’s not that there’s some intervention at the federal level that has prevented it from being more transparent. They’re choosing not to, and that’s not okay.”
La Resistencia holds demonstrations on a daily basis in front of NWDC and is actively working on bringing awareness to detainees’ situations through its “Free Them All” campaign that requests the public calls upon their local legislators, ICE and Geo Group to release each person.
Marian Mohamed is the associate editor of Real Change. She oversees our weekly features. Contact her at [email protected].
Read more of the May 8–14, 2024 issue.