What do you picture when you think of the Tacoma tide flats? Whatever comes to mind, you probably do not imagine a facility detaining over 1,000 suspected immigrants.
If you are surprised to learn that the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) exists just five miles from campus, you are not alone. Many Tacoma residents are also unaware of this well-kept secret.
The NWDC, which opened in 2004, was built to accommodate overflow of undocumented immigrants sent to a Seattle-area detention center. Increased crackdown on immigration was a result of the Department of Homeland Security seeking to detain any immigrants without proper documentation following 9/11 because these immigrants were viewed as a threat.
The NWDC is owned by the GEO Group, a private company that profits off of prisons on four different continents (North America, Europe, Africa, and Australia).
In recent years, the GEO Group has been involved in some controversies that have sparked the interest of activists. Civil rights violations have been cited in multiple campaigns and court cases against the GEO Group across the country, from accusations of meager and sometimes rotten food rations to lack of proper medical care.
The center in Tacoma is no less controversial. In 2008, a NWDC official pleaded guilty to falsifying documents to cover up a lack of background searches on almost 100 guards employed at the detention center.
According to a report by the Seattle University School of Law and the nonprofit OneAmerica, the NWDC is also guilty of violating basic rights, demonstrated by poor living conditions and ignorance of due process of law. While the average period of incarceration is 30 days, immigrants (and some American citizens awaiting citizenship verification) can be held for years awaiting an immigration trial.
Regardless of one’s position on immigration, we can all probably agree that the secretive detention center is something that citizens should know about and openly discuss. However, the NWDC has mostly remained hidden, both in its physical location and its prevalence in public discussion.
As communication students, we argue that the reason you have not heard of the NWDC is because the media has chosen not to make it important. Media, and television in particular, is the dominant force shaping our society today; it cultivates social attitudes towards absolutely everything. Media determines what people think about; we all use it as a source of clues as to what we should be thinking about on a daily basis.
In the six years since the NWDC opened, it’s doubtful that any of you have seen a story about the Northwest Detention Center on the local news.
A reason for this could be that as a country, we tend to think that undocumented immigrants deserve what comes to them if they are caught in “our” country. If they deserve what they get, why would the media waste time telling you about an immigrant detention center when they probably assume everyone would agree with its practices anyway? But there is much more at stake here then many of us seem to realize.
In America, race creates identity; if immigrants are taught that the only way to survive in this country is by hiding their race for fear of detention, they are also at risk of losing the core of their identity.
Race in is our culture is also immutable. It is considered a fixed part of an individual’s essence; these individuals really can’t hide their race even if they try.
It is a vicious cycle that immigrants are trapped in; their race, the first thing that many people identify them by, and the part of them that should be central to their personal identity, is the same thing that will forever hold them down.
[Guest writers: Kelby Schweitzer and Jessica Erickson]