New Tacoma facility to house people targeted for deportation

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Painter Jesse Galick works in a cell designed for two people at the Northwest Detention Center being built in Tacoma. The 500-bed center, which will house immigrants the government has targeted for deportation, is scheduled to open April 14.
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On any given day, about 500 immigrants are being held in detention facilities throughout Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Some are awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge.

Others are awaiting a plane ride back to their home country.

While the number and makeup of detainees vary, the scenario is similar in regions across the United States as the government has stepped up efforts to find and deport illegal or criminal immigrants.

A new detention center set to open April 14 in Tacoma is among a growing number of new or expanding facilities across the country to house immigrants the government has targeted for deportation.

The Northwest Detention Center, with a 500-bed capacity, will house men and women being held in federal facilities like the one along Airport Way South in Seattle as well as in county and city jails throughout this state and in Oregon and Alaska.

	JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Immigration detainees are held at an aging facility on Airport Way South in Seattle, where the exercise area is enclosed by razor wire, good for security but rough on basketballs.

The 140,000-square-foot center is going up on the site of a former meatpacking plant, once an environmental cleanup site in the Tacoma Tideflats. The complex will feature two courtrooms, a medical center, a recreational facility, four cellblocks and an administrative wing.

"Our goal is to hold (people) for the briefest period of time to effect their removal from the country," said Phillip Crawford, field director for the Detention and Removal Operations branch within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division.

"We're not in the prison business," he said. "Our objective is not detention but removal from the U.S."

Immigrants can be detained for a number of reasons, including deportation proceedings, foul-ups involving their immigrant status or criminal matters. While they can be held for a few days or up to a year, the average stay is 17 days. Last year, nearly 3,100 men, women and children were expelled from the three-state Northwest region, up 25 percent from the previous year.

Tougher immigration enforcement and less space available for immigrant detainees in city and county jails across the country have helped drive the nationwide expansion of detention facilities, and immigration officials soon will be able to hold up to 8,000 more immigrants a day. Immigrant detention is the fastest-growing segment of the federal prison system, U.S. Department of Justice statistics show.

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Portions of the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma are designed with dormitory-style living areas, like in this section for women.

The number of detainees has increased from a daily average of 8,600 in 1995 to about 21,500 now, the data show.

Detention facilities also are being built or expanded in Texas, the Washington-Baltimore area, Boston and Denver.

For the Tacoma center, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) contracted with Correctional Services, of Sarasota, Fla., to build and run the $115 million complex. Federal authorities will pay about $121 a day for each individual detained.

"Our job is one of maintaining a secure environment for the inmates, taking care of and feeding them," said Russell Rau, senior vice president for Correctional Services. "The immigration portion of it is handled by ICE."

The facility has the capacity to expand by 200 beds.

The Tacoma facility replaces the aging Seattle detention facility, which many complain is noisy and shows evidence of its 70-plus years.

While immigrant advocates said the new building will be an improvement, they worry that its distance from Seattle could deprive some detainees of legal representation and visits from family.

Neha Chandola, legal director with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, an advocacy group that helps connect detainees with lawyers, said detention cases are often complicated and on such a fast track it's difficult to find attorneys to represent those in custody.

"The percentage of attorneys wanting to help cases in detention is already low," Chandola said. "If you have higher numbers in a facility further away from the downtown (Seattle) area, it may mean even fewer attorneys will take cases in detention."

For detainees who will be brought in from Alaska or Oregon, where they've been held, distance could further complicate their cases. "All the evidence is out of state," she said.

"It becomes a hardship for the family but makes the legal case even more difficult."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

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