Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities across the U.S. are continuously under fire for subjecting migrants to inhumane conditions. Most recently, a multibillion-dollar company that runs an ICE center in Tacoma, Washington, confirmed the deployment of “chemical agents.” According to the Seattle Times, an ICE spokesman confirmed that GEO Group guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center deployed chemicals after ICE authorized “non-lethal use of force” in response to a confrontation during a housing unit inspection that discovered contraband razor blades.
Maru Mora Villalpando, of the group La Resistencia, told the Seattle Times that last week’s confrontation was the first time she’d heard of chemical agents being used at the facility. However, reports have indicated tear gas being used at others.
Detainees allegedly barricaded their door before the chemical agents were used. The incident follows several reports of a hunger strike occurring at the facility.
Those strikes are part of an ongoing conflict about how facilities should be run. Several detention centers across the U.S. are privately run and thus have different protocols and regulations. While Washington lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 banning most privately run detention centers, GEO Group sued, and the litigation is ongoing.
Speaking to this, David Yost, the ICE spokesperson, told the Seattle Times that ICE as an agency “is committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.”
We all know this isn’t true, given the number of reports (almost daily) of the conditions migrants face in ICE detention. It’s also interesting, given that Yost had previously said ICE had limited control over what happens in the facilities that bear its name. “I don’t have direct oversight over GEO,” he told the Seattle Times when speaking about GEO Group and its practices.
According to the Seattle Times, conditions are so bad at the Northwest ICE Processing Center facility that some have attempted to kill themselves; one detainee died by suicide in 2018.
“These latest reports are alarming,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, they are consistent with the concerns my office has long had regarding the unlawful and unsafe conditions at the Northwest ICE Processing Center.”
Christopher Ferreira, a GEO Group corporate relations manager, said the chemical agent incident involved “a small group of high-security detainees,” who he claims were being disruptive.
“Staff were able to diffuse the initial disruption, with more than half of the detainees complying,” Ferreira said. “However, the remaining detainees continued to be unresponsive to staff orders and, as a matter of protocol, this resulted in the use of chemical agents.”
The statement added: “We take the use of chemical agents with the utmost seriousness and our staff follow strict federal standards as it relates to their use.”
Christian Dueñas, a detainee who witnessed the incident, said it all began when guards confiscated empty soda bottles that detainees were using as water bottles—a practice guards say is prohibited. The situation then escalated when detainees refused, asserting that they were not “in prison.”
According to Dueñas, the guards then dressed in helmets and body armor and threw what he described as three grenades. At this time, what kind of chemical agents were used is not publicly known.
“You could smell it from across the hallway,” Dueñas said. He added that detainees were let out of the unit in handcuffs, “coughing and choking.”
According to the Seattle Times, at least 100 detainees remained on a hunger strike as of Friday. The strike follows complaints about harsh living conditions, which have only worsened since the start of the year. Letters have been sent calling for an investigation into “unsanitary living conditions.”
But GEO Group denies all the allegations, and in a statement, said: “We have taken all necessary action to ensure that facility sanitation levels and food service operations and quality are maintained at the facility in accordance with all applicable federal sanitation and food service standards.”
According to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the 1,500-bed facility currently holds about 600 detainees.