Tacoma’s ICE center holds 1575 detainees, many unconstitutionally, as jail company reaps record profits.
Governor Ferguson seems to believe that we can make nice to Donald Trump, even having toyed with the idea of sending 200 National Guard troops to the Canadian border to assist with the Trump administration’s border policing. What about collaborating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in our state? Does the Governor want to assist in the detainment and imprisonment of Washington residents by ICE? Or will he follow the example of Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who just flew to El Salvador in an attempt to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the penal colony in which Trump has imprisoned him.
We have our very own penal colony in Washington. More than 1500 people are imprisoned in the GEO company’s ICE detention facility in Tacoma. Their imprisonment is in direct violation of Article 1, Section 3 of the Washington state constitution. That article for “personal rights” states that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Having a private profit-making prison in our state is an insult to all of us and an assault on those who are taken prisoner with no due process. This is a violation of Article 1, Section 13 of our state constitution which states, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety requires it.”
None of the people in the ICE prison have been afforded due process. They have been forcibly picked up by ICE. We should not stand by and just watch. The Attorney General should go after the GEO company for violation of the state’s constitution and demand due process for those incarcerated, and immediate release from imprisonment.
The Governor and the Legislature have other levers to closing down the GEO facility. Representative Lillian Ortiz-Self introduced a bill, HB 1232, now passed by the Legislature and awaiting Governor’s Ferguson’s signature. This will enable the Department of Health to inspect the GEO facility and take enforcement actions when it is non-compliant (which it appears it is on a continual basis). This bill was passed on April 14. The Governor should sign it into law immediately.
GEO is a private for-profit company. In 2017 then Attorney General Ferguson filed a lawsuit against GEO for paying incarcerated people $1 a day for cleaning and maintenance work at the facility (while GEO was receiving from ICE $100 a day for each of these people). At that time, GEO’s profit from the Tacoma facility was $20 million annually.
That was before the second Trump regime — now undoubtedly prison revenue is even more. The company was also ordered to hand over $17 million in back wages, plus $6 million for “unjust enrichment.” What did GEO do? In typical Trumpian fashion, it appealed the decision.
GEO is registered as a foreign limited liability company. Its business license in our state expires next February. GEO gets $100.65 a day for each incarcerated person. The average stay is 36 days, before the detainee is sent out of our country or released back to his or her home in Washington. That’s $3600 per detainee from the federal government to GEO. The prison, with 1575 beds, is at capacity. That adds up to $57 million a year, to enhance GEO’s bottom line. In 2024, GEO’s net income exceeded $100 million.
In 2003, the state of Washington helped to launch this insult to humanity with a loan of $57 million from the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority. And then again, in 2011 the Washington Economic Development Finance Authority loaned GEO another $54.4 million.
An ambivalent but apparently good enough letter written by State Representative Laurie Jinkins, now the Speaker of the House, was submitted by GEO to help persuade the Finance Authority to make this loan. What did this loan amount to? A 1.5% reduction in the interest rate for construction, saving GEO at least $500,000.
Our state government can not only loan money to dubious entities, it can also tax these entities. And that’s exactly what we should be doing in the next week. The Legislature should penalize those companies that detain residents by making imprisonment without due process untenable in Washington. The Legislature could tax GEO $50 for every person in their custody who is a victim of GEO’s violation of due process. That would be easy to track, as GEO has to keep an “inventory” of the people it locks up. Such a tax would bring in over $25 million annually.
We can stand up to GEO, not just picket in front of their Tacoma mass holding cell, after financing their facility. Diminishing the profits of corporate imprisoners should be at the top of our agenda, for our Governor, our Legislature, and everyone else.
John Burbank (Guest Contributor)
John Burbank is the founder and retired executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle.