Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown are weighing in on an ongoing battle between the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma and the state’s health department.
The company that owns the detention center, GEO Group, has been blocking state health inspectors from gaining access to the facility since 2023, despite 10 attempts at inspections and over 3,500 complaints of substandard conditions from detainees.
The governor and the attorney general have now filed an injunction that would bar GEO Group from being able to further prevent health department inspectors from entering. If granted, the state would be allowed access to inspect the facility.
“People are being harmed in this facility, and inaction is no longer acceptable,” Brown said during a press conference Tuesday. “By refusing to let inspectors do their job, the GEO Group is violating the law and sending the message that Washingtonians don’t deserve to know what is going on in their facility.”
Complaints have included reports of rotten food or food containing insects, unclean water, and unsanitary conditions. One detainee reported that, at one point, the facility only had two working bathrooms for over 100 inmates. There are also more than 100 complaints of assault. There have also been deaths reported at the facility — including two people who did not receive g appropriate medical care in 2024, and a suicide in 2018.
“The GEO Group has largely said that those are false,” Brown said. “The best way to prove that is to open it up, give transparency.”
A 2023 law signed by former Gov. Jay Inslee made it legal for the state Department of Health to inspect private detention facilities, like the Northwest ICE Processing Center. GEO Group filed a lawsuit in response, stating that the state could not regulate a federal contractor. A federal judge blocked the law from going into effect until last August, when it was lifted. Since then, health department inspectors have continued to be denied access.
“Washington state has a right to ensure the health and wellness of people detained within our borders, period, full stop. And we have the legal authority granted by the legislature and affirmed by the courts to inspect private detention centers like this one,” Ferguson said. “I want to be perfectly clear, we will not allow GEO Group’s continued obstruction and brazen disregard for state law to go unchallenged.”
GEO Group declined to comment for this story.
The company risks fines for continuing to deny inspectors access, and if an immediate health hazard that can’t be fixed is found, the state health department could shut down the facility entirely.
Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, a Mukilteo Democrat who sponsored the 2023 law to allow health inspections in detention facilities, said she has been waiting for this moment.
“They have ignored every complaint, every concern we have raised, and they just feel like they can continue to push us,” Ortiz-Self said. “I knew we would have to come to the point in that we would have to run every option that we have to enforce that they are not above the law and must adhere to the laws of the state of Washington.”
She added that those detained in these facilities, regardless of the reasons why, don’t deserve the conditions they are being held in.
“You can have your opinion on any of that, but I think everyone agrees that we have a broken legal system that isn't fair,” Ortiz-Self said. “They're human beings, and they don't deserve to be assaulted, raped, starved, poisoned by chemicals. They don’t deserve that.”
The attorney general’s office is hoping a hearing will be given “fairly quickly” to argue for the injunction. The law includes a fine of $10,000 for each denial of entry to the health department.
