Tacoma SDS

The following is an email exchange with the Pierce County Health Department about the current influenza outbreak at the NWDC:

Mr. Turner,

Thank you for the prompt reply. We are aware of the role of the Public Health Service and understand their difficult task in protecting the health of all that are impacted by this event. A special concern is noted because in prior instances of health situations at the facility (Measles and food-borne illness) a general lack of candor was exhibited by those responsible.

Some form of contagious disease is causing enhanced precautions at the Northeest Detention Center located on the Tacoma Tarpits Superfund site. Over the weekend, visiting families, some coming from as far away as Portland, were turned away and told that an outbreak of a flu-like disease was on-going.

Even though the persons they were coming to visit were not ill, they were still prevented from visiting.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee - The City of Tacoma has confirmed that the Tacoma PD and Port of Tacoma Police have collected and shared intelligence data on various local and regional activist groups such as Hate Free Zone (Seattle), Community-to-Community (Bellingham), People for Peace Justice and Healing (Tacoma), the Pierce County ACLU, BORDC-Tacoma, and the Tacoma Students for a Democratic Society (Tacoma SDS) since at least 2006.

2004: A private prison for immigrant detainees was set to open in Tacoma on April 14. The Northwest Detention Center will be the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE – formerly known as the INS) latest prison. It will hold up to 760 men and women from Washington, Alaska and Oregon who are awaiting immigration or deportation hearings. The prison will be owned and run by Florida-based Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) with oversight by the Department of Homeland Security. Many are concerned about the location of the prison and the company that will run it.

The Tacoma Bill of Rights Defense Committee is appealing an environmental Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) issued by the City of Tacoma for an expansion of the privately owned, privately operated Northwest Detention Center (NWDC). “Faulty documents, errors, and misstatements have resulted in a bad decision to approve this expansion”, said Tim Smith, chairperson of the committee.

This weekend a Wells Fargo real estate office had its windows broken in solidarity with recent migrant detentions in Washington. There have also been other attacks against Wells Fargo and other profiteers in the immigrant detention industry along the West Coast. Santa Cruz, CA to name just one.

This Saturday also saw a protest against condo developer Mike Cohen in Tacoma, who fired and threatened workers with deportation when they raised concerns about unhealthy working conditions.

Here is the communique from Seattle.Indymedia.org:

An immigration mix-up puts a Lakewood man and U.S. citizen behind bars for seven months and almost gets him deported.

Rennison Castillo broke the law. He was punished for it. And he thought he had served his time. Instead, the last day of an eight-month jail sentence was the start of a seven-month nightmare that almost ended two years ago with Castillo – a Lakewood resident, Army veteran and American citizen – deported to Belize, a country he left as a child.

He spoke publicly about the incident for the first time earlier this month.