Japanese Americans call for closure of Tacoma’s immigration prison

One day before the Day of Remembrance, commemorating when President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the incarceration of Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent during World War II, a group of protesters gathered outside Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center, pointing to the facility as evidence history is repeating itself.

The building, privately run by the Geo Group, is a “processing facility” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and can hold more than 1,500 people at a time, many of whom are awaiting a decision on asylum claims or deportation proceedings.

The detention center has drawn consistent scrutiny, first by activists, then Washington lawmakers, amid reports of poor conditions from people inside. Geo Group has denied the accusations.

On Sunday, the primary group serving as a conduit for those complaints, La Resistencia, teamed with Tsuru for Solidarity, made up of descendants of those incarcerated during World War II, to call for the facility to be shut down.