TACOMA, Washington– Washington state on Tuesday asked a federal judge to force private prison management company The Geo Group to allow health inspectors into its for-profit immigration detention center in Tacoma, which has been the subject of thousands of arrests. Complaints from detainees In recent years.
Inspectors from the Washington Department of Health were repeatedly denied entry to the Northwest ICE Processing Center, where Geo Group holds immigrants under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Gov. Bob Ferguson said at a news conference outside the facility on Tuesday. The detention center has a capacity of approximately 1,600 people Pending their deportation cases.
In 2023, Washington passed a law asserting its “broad authority to enforce generally applicable health and safety laws against contractors who operate private detention facilities.” Geo filed a lawsuit to challenge it, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals I upheld the law; Gio has until June 11 to appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court.
“Despite the court’s mandate and the severity of the problem, GEO Group continues to defy our law by refusing to accept Department of Health inspectors,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said at the press conference. “In my view, this is not just a legal obligation. It is a moral obligation.”
Geo declined to comment in response to an email request from The Associated Press, instead referring a reporter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The state said it has received 3,500 complaints from detainees in the past few years, nearly 1,000 of which related to water, food and air quality. Some complaints said the food contained burnt plastic, splinters, hair, worms and other foreign objects. The detainees stated that the water tasted unpleasant.
State health inspectors have been turned away from the facility all 10 times they have tried to enter since the law was passed, Ferguson said. Most recently, they were turned away on April 20 when they went to check the water. The facility’s water is supplied by the city of Tacoma, which has good water, suggesting there may be a maintenance issue with the detention center’s pipes, officials said.
Inspectors were told they needed to contact ICE’s field office in Seattle, which they had previously done to no avail, the state court filing said.