Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.
Oversight of health and safety issues is limited at ICE detention center in Tacoma
Story published 07/20/2026
Dirty drinking water. Poor hygiene. Lack of medical access. Physical assaults. These are only a few of the reported issues at the privately run immigration detention center in Tacoma.
Access to information has historically been limited because the center is run by a private company with a federal contract, making state or local oversight a legal question that’s still being hashed out in the courts.
But human rights and community advocacy groups have worked to document what they can.
The reported issues at the Northwest ICE Processing Center run the gamut from unsanitary – think uncooked food and unwashed clothes – to unsafe or life threatening.
State officials have tried to inspect the facility to verify these claims multiple times, often being turned away. In fact, the Washington Attorney General filed a lawsuit against GEO Group, the private company running the facility, for exactly that reason.
The lawsuit filings say the state has received 3,500 complaints about the facility.
Community advocacy groups have also documented delays for medical attention and alleged overuse of solitary confinement.
In 2024 alone, two detainees died while in custody.
Jose Manuel Sanchez-Castro passed in late October 2024. His cause of death was determined to be an ulcer, but a 9-1-1 call obtained by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights revealed he was going through fentanyl withdrawal.
Earlier in 2024, Charles Leo Daniel died while in solitary confinement. With only two days in the general population, the 61-year-old man was held in solitary confinement for nearly four years.
GEO Group and ICE did not return requests for comment on these cases.
All this week, we’ll dig into assaults at the facility and what is or isn’t being done about it.
New federal contract weakens state oversight
Story published 07/21/2026
For years now, human rights and community advocacy groups have documented unsanitary conditions and violence inside the ICE detention center in Tacoma, while active legal fights continue in the courts to get inside the facility.
State and local authorities have had limits on their ability to provide oversight, and a new federal contract for the facility puts even more limits on that oversight.
Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, analyzed a new contract that began in March between the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, and the private company called GEO Group that operates the Tacoma facility.
“The new contract specifically says that, if there are areas where local or state law demands more rigorous standards than what the contract stipulates, that the lowest standard is what goes, which is the complete opposite of what the previous contracts had said,” Godoy said.
Specifically, the former contract states: “Should a conflict exist between any of these standards, the most stringent shall apply.”
While the new contract says: “If any conflicts between federal, state, or local laws or rules arise, the federal rules shall be followed.”
The state passed legislation in 2023 aimed at regulating the detention center and allowing access to inspections. GEO Group and the state went to court, with a federal judge recently deciding in the state’s favor.
But the language of the new contract effectively means GEO Group would not be held to any stricter laws Washington passes. However, Godoy said she believes it would be challenged in court.
The new contract is a temporary bridge contract until late October 2026. But it’s unclear what it’s a bridge to and how that might affect oversight of the facility in the long term.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at other changes in the new contract that could cost taxpayers even more.
Taxpayers could foot the bill for lawsuits at Tacoma ICE detention center
Story published 07/22/2026
The Northwest ICE Processing Center has been at the center of several lawsuits over the years. That often includes GEO Group, the private company that operates the facility, as the defendant.
Under a new temporary federal contract, the federal government will foot the bill for any lawsuits against GEO Group.
“This is something GEO has long sought. But in the past, the federal government has denied them that. So, that suggests, then that the federal taxpayer will be on the hook for GEOs, any of litigation brought against GEO,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.
That means taxpayers could find themselves footing the bill for both sides of a court case.
For example, the Washington Attorney General is currently suing GEO Group, after the company stopped health inspectors from getting access to the facility.
In addition to covering the company’s legal defense costs, the new contract also changes a few other key elements.
It increased the capacity for the facility to 1,635, despite the local zoning capacity being capped at 1,575. Godoy and other advocates point to the increased population as a major factor in worsening conditions.
It created more relaxed requirements around how quickly ICE must provide medical care.
And it weakened transparency around detainee information by prohibiting the company from any public disclosure without first contacting ICE.
GEO Group and ICE did not return requests for comment for this story.
Next time, we’ll take a look at how often GEO Group followed what the contract states even before the new contract took effect.
Advocates say assault investigations often mishandled at ICE Tacoma facility
Story published 07/23/2026
When an assault happens at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, GEO Group, the private company running the facility, conducts an internal investigation to determine wrongdoing and ways to prevent future assaults.
But advocates say that process is often mishandled and evidence ignored.
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights researched 175 instances of alleged assault at the detention center from 2015 to 2025.
Of those, about half were determined to be unsubstantiated, including a case where a DNA sample might have proven the assault.
In June 2024, a man detained at the center reported being forced to give oral sex to another detained man on multiple occasions. He saved a semen sample for DNA analysis and attempted to report the assault multiple times before finally being connected with an officer.
But two months later in August, before the sample had been analyzed, the internal investigation concluded that the assault was unsubstantiated.
The sample was later confirmed by Tacoma police to be from the man’s accused rapist.
Angelina Godoy, who analyzed the records, says she found a pattern of disregarding evidence in internal investigations.
“For example, they say there's no video evidence available. While we know from the facility that there's oftentimes cameras and there's simply not checking the cameras. Or they conclude quite readily that somebody is making it up, that they're not telling a truth, etc.. It's a very frequent tendency to dismiss accounts,” Godoy said.
In a written statement, GEO Group said “GEO mandates zero tolerance towards all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment in all its facilities” and added that ICE reviews all of its policies which are designed to comply with ICE and DHS rules.
The contract between GEO and ICE also requires the company to determine how to prevent future assaults when it is substantiated. But Godoy says that part of the process is often ignored, even when it’s determined there was violence.
“They would just say, ‘no, no, nothing could be done differently.’ And that's really the opportunity for the facility to take safety seriously, not only the safety of the person who's already been victimized, but the safety of future people coming through the facility,” Godoy said.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a dive deeper into investigations of assaults at the center by looking into the Tacoma Police Department’s role.
Assault allegations rarely result in prosecution
Story published 07/24/2026
After an alleged assault inside the Northwest ICE Processing Center, the private company running the facility conducts an internal investigation, a process that can often be faulty, as we reported yesterday.
Experts say the Tacoma Police Department should also be conducting its own separate investigation. But, that hasn’t always happened in the past. And findings from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights reveal that only two of nearly 160 reported assaults over a decade resulted in prosecution.
Javon Gordon had been detained for months when he returned to his cell and found his belongings scattered on the floor in late 2024, according to a lawsuit filing.
He protested to a supervisor and, as he was talking to the supervisor, two other guards allegedly threw him and pinned him to the ground.
“They chained his hands and his feet both behind his back, so he’s defenseless. And then one of the guards delivers, kind of a knee strike against his ribcage,” said Gregory Zacharia, Javon Gordon’s attorney.
Gordon, along with two others, filed a lawsuit against GEO Group, the private company that runs the facility. In the suit, he alleges that he was not only assaulted, but that the guards justified the physical force by accusing him of assault. The lawsuit describes an internal hearing during which he learned there was a video recording of the incident, but wasn’t allowed to see it.
“It’s beginning to appear, with the new trainees who are coming into the facility, that the video of Javon’s beating is being used in training. One staff member who had been in facility a little bit longer told Javon he was so alarmed by what he saw in the video that he told Javon to get a lawyer. And that is what puts Javon on the path to participating in this lawsuit,” Zacharia said.
Records from the TPD show that Gordon also called and reported the assault to police, who responded saying it was “not TPD jurisdiction” and that they let GEO staff “know they can handle the complaint in house.” However, both experts and TPD agree that TPD does have jurisdiction. TPD declined an on-camera interview for this story.
Researchers at the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights released a report last year revealing that Gordon’s case is not the exception. Of the nearly 160 cases they analyzed, spanning a decade, only two of the cases ever went to prosecution.
And in those two cases, guards were the ones assaulted, despite the majority of calls to 9-1-1 being from detainees saying they’ve been assaulted.
“Now, that's not to say that people who are facility employees can't be victims, but we know that the overwhelming majority of the reports of violence were being made by detained folks. And we saw a systematic pattern of dismissing those claims as not credible, as being made up, as people fabricating accounts as a way to get out of the detention center, etc,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.
Additionally, detainees cannot call 9-1-1.
“Although the facility is located within Tacoma, its jurisdiction, people within the facility cannot call 911. Not that they're not allowed to, that they literally can't. There is not the technological capacity from within the facility to call 9-1-1,” Godoy said.
So in order for a detained person to call 911, they have to ask a guard to call for them.
The report highlighted several key findings from the analysis of public records, including that TPD did not follow up with detained victims more frequently than staff, and that TPD frequently didn’t pursue an investigation because GEO was conducting an internal investigation.
TPD declined to comment on the report, saying “there is additional context surrounding the cases referenced, which span more than a decade of responses.”
Godoy says that two investigations should be conducted independently of each other when there’s a crime at the facility.
She also added that TPD has clear jurisdiction over crimes in the center – despite records showing TPD officers claiming they didn’t have jurisdiction in some cases in the past. An informational directive published by TPD last fall reinforced this, explicitly saying that the department provides law enforcement services at the center for both detainees and staff.
As for Gordon, his case is now going into discovery, which means he may soon gain access to the video at the heart of his case.
