Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Detainees who clean dishes, floors and do other work at Tacoma’s ICE detention center must be paid Washington state’s minimum wage. That’s according to ruling handed down Wednesday in federal court. GEO Group, the private prison company that runs the facility, had paid working detainees as little as $1 per day.

Earlier this year, Washington state banned private prisons. Since then, there’s been a lot of back and forth about exactly when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Tacoma should shut down. A new court case could determine if the ICE facility must close its doors years before lawmakers expected.

An immigrant rights activist who had been facing deportation says she can now remain in the U.S., after the Department of Homeland Security agreed to drop her case. Maru Mora Villalpando, a Mexico City native who has been in the U.S. since 1996, said Tuesday that an immigration judge last week approved the decision.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, must test detainees for COVID-19 before they are transferred from the southern border to the detention center in Tacoma, a federal judge ruled this week.

Police, jail staff and other local law enforcement across Washington state continue to share information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or…

A trial over whether the GEO Group must pay minimum wage — instead of $1 a day — to immigration detainees who perform tasks like cooking and cleaning at…

After nearly four years of litigation and pandemic-related delays, a trial is underway to determine whether the GEO Group must pay minimum wage to…

Private prison corporation GEO Group has sued Washington state, saying a new law mandating the closure of the immigrant detention center it operates in…

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Wednesday banning all private, for-profit prisons. The new law means the privately run Immigration and Customs…

The Washington state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that bans private, for-profit prison companies that contract with local, state and federal agencies…