Jayapal’s statement on inspection of the Northwest Immigrant Processing Center

SEATTLE, WA – U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, ranking Democrat on the Committee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, released the following statement following an inspection of the Northwest Immigrant Processing Center (NWIPC), formerly the Northwest Detention Center, in response to reports of the inhumane conditions faced by detainees at the facility:

“I spent over an hour at the Northwest Immigrant Processing Center with the center's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) senior leadership. I was grateful for their answers to my questions about the facility and the issues of concern we heard. My visit reinforced my belief that we must fundamentally change our approach to immigrant detention, a detention system that has been largely outsourced to private, for-profit prison companies that have too little accountability and too many incentives to simply fill beds and consume taxpayer dollars. Instead, we should move to a humane, accountable, redesigned detention system operated by the federal government and staffed by qualified, unionized federal employees, rather than private, for-profit prison companies.

“President Biden himself said in 2023, ‘There should be no private prisons and no private detention centers.’ Yet approximately 91% of immigrants remain in detention centers, largely run by two for-profit companies, GEO and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America), which collected $1 billion and $552 million from ICE in 2022 alone, respectively. That is why, following my visit, I am reiterating my call for the Biden administration to issue an executive order to phase out the use of private for-profit detention centers. I will also continue my work to pass my Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, which would set standards for responsible care for detained individuals, creating a truly civil, humane system and prioritizing community-based alternatives for those who need assistance in successfully completing their immigration case.

“During my visit, I reiterated my call for the report into the death of Charles Daniels to be released immediately. Once the report is released, I will review it and work on the necessary follow-up to this case to prevent future deaths.”

“Unfortunately, I was not permitted to speak directly with the detainees during my visit. I remain deeply concerned by the detainees' accounts of the conditions and will continue to closely monitor the facility and discuss my concerns with federal officials.”

Earlier this year, Charles Leo Daniel died in custody at NWIPC after spending 1,418 days in solitary confinement, and in 2018 another inmate at the facility committed suicide. Inmates at the facility have been forced to go on hunger strikes to protest conditions, which include medical neglect, contaminated food and unsanitary conditions.

Jayapal has been a leader in efforts to end the use of private, for-profit detention facilities and instead use alternatives to incarceration. She has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security on multiple occasions to demand the closure of facilities with abusive records and has also worked to enforce accountability and transparency at many of those facilities. Her visit today follows a meeting with the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general and long-standing oversight efforts at the Northwest Detention Center.

She is also the lead sponsor of the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, groundbreaking legislation that would end the use of for-profit, private detention centers and protect the civil and human rights of immigrants.

###