Every second Saturday of the month there is a Vigil in support of the rights of immigrants at the Northwest Detention Center. This past Saturday we had a march!

The detention center is controlled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) but is run by the GEO Corp a for profit corporation who has ties to Guantanamo amongst other nefarious prison complexes. It holds 1,000 immigrants but is increasing to hold 1,500 none of whom are there because they are serving terms as criminals in prison. Mostly Mexicans, around 50%, the average stay is close to 30 days if you sign papers saying you willingly want to be deported. However if you fight deportation you may get held there for 11 months to over 4 years. This is not punishment for a crime. While many get referred here from Idaho, Oregon and Washington after getting picked up by the police, all jail time is served before they are sent to the facility. Some may have been placed here after a routine traffic infraction or for being brown while driving, others may have been picked up on home or business raids. Some are US citizens and are detained through confusion or because they don't have their papers on them.

The conditions under which they are held are deplorable ones with many getting sick from food poisoning as one recent example. If released they are dumped jobless, homeless and without money onto the streets of Tacoma, their old lives ruined. They might have been tax payers with solid jobs, but when released they don't have a job anymore and become a burden on Tacoma's tax payers who pay for social services to get them on their feet. Which means a regional program dumps an increasing burden on one city. More than 10,000 people a year go through the detention center.

We demand that ICE close the Northwest Detention Center and all detention centers. We believe that all immigrants should recieve amnesty and should become legal residents of the US. That workers should not be punished for employers running around the law and hiring people to work illegally for a low wage and under deplorable conditions. That NAFTA and CAFTA should be ended and free trade should become fair trade so that people do not have to leave their country to find work because US corporations and government subsidies have gotten rid of dignified jobs in their country of origin. We demand comprehensive immigrant protectionand stand in solidarity with the immigrant members of our community.

Bruce Wilkinson

Latin American Solidarity Organization

latinamericansolidarity@gmail.com

Meeting: Friday, Nov. 20 5:30 Media Island