Second person this year dies at WA immigrant detention center
SEATTLE – A person died Sunday at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. It was the second death this year at one of the largest immigrant detention facilities in the country.
Tacoma police spokesperson Shelbie Boyd confirmed the death, publicized Tuesday by the activist group La Resistencia. Boyd said police were called to the site at 7 a.m. but didn’t go in because, just then, Tacoma firefighters were coming out. The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office was also there, she said.
City and county officials released no other information Tuesday about the person who died or the cause of death. Christopher Ferreira, a spokesperson for the GEO Group, which runs the facility, referred questions to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which did not immediately respond.
In March, 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel died at the facility, which holds people the government contends are in the country illegally. Natural causes, specifically cardiovascular disease, caused Daniel’s death, according to the county Medical Examiner’s Office.
Even so, Daniel’s death brought renewed attention to conditions at the facility because he had been held in solitary confinement for almost the entire four years he was detained, a fact heavily criticized by immigrant rights advocates.
People detained at the Tacoma site have for years complained about what they say is inadequate food and harsh treatment. There have been at least six suicide attempts there this year, according to an analysis of 911 records and calls by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, and people incarcerated at the detention center have repeatedly gone on hunger strikes.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is the latest group to express concern about conditions there, including what the group said was a lack of transparency and oversight, after representatives spent two days last week touring the facility and meeting with detained people.
In light of the latest death, La Resistencia said it would hold vigils throughout the week outside the detention center.