On this edition of Your Call, we hear from activists calling for the closure of the Northwest Detention Center, the only for-profit federal detention center in the state of Washington.
Over the last decade, immigrant detainees at NWDC have held multiple hunger strikes to protest unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and lack of medical care. When the Department of Health attempted to enter NWDC's facilities to investigate complaints, the GEO Group, which owns and operates the facility, denied them entry. The Geo Group has also turned away Department of Labor and Industries officials.
Advocates with Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American-led social justice project, have called for the closure of the facility, saying that it perpetuates the same mistakes that were made during WWII, when over 100,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly incarcerated.
Those calls reached a fever pitch this month after 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, died at the NWDC. He was found unresponsive on March 7.
Guests:
Maru Mora-Villalpando, immigration activist and founder of La Resistencia
Stan Shikuma, organizer with Tsuru for Solidarity and co-president of the Japanese American Citizens League, Seattle Chapter
Resources:
Seattle Times, by Mike Ishii and Stan Shikuma: On Remembrance Day, call for end to immigrant detention
Seattle Times: Activist Maru Mora-Villalpando says ICE using deportation threat as ‘intimidation tactic
KNKX: Activists monitor Tacoma ICE facility 24/7 after detainee death
UW Center for Human Rights: NWDC Conditions Research Update: Charles Leo Daniel’s Death at NWDC in Context
Fight Back! News: Tacoma community holds vigil at Northwest Detention Center for 12th consecutive day
