12/23/2025
How did we get here?
The way Tony was treated at the Tacoma Detention Center? It didn’t happen overnight.
It’s years of the public turning a blind eye to how our immigrants have been historically treated in these centers.
The information is not buried, we were always too busy.
Maybe preoccupied with other subjects we were passionate about. Maybe we didn’t read the article about that one case that happened long ago. Maybe we just assumed that because there is an oversight committee, everything is on the up and up? Maybe it is up to someone else but that someone else never me?
Can we really go back now? Because if you agree that what happened to Tony is an injustice than we also have to agree that this injustice has been fueled for some time and we are all culpable when we decided that we only started caring recently when things go so incredibly out of control that we felt we had no other choice.
What are these screenshots from? Audits of the Tacoma detention center. I also added links in our bio for the full report (all open data).
Key findings:
•Audits are done once a year. The last one was done back in January so we should be due for one soon
•Audits are done by the office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman (OIDO)
•The sample size is so incredibly small that it really is an unfair assessment in my opinion. For example, in 2020, there was an average of 858 individuals being held with only 12 being interviewed- that’s not even a 2% sample size
•There is a inspection report for 2014 and no reports available in the open library for years: 2015, 2016, and 2017 and year “2019” is completely missing from the library for all documents. Reports pick back up in 2020 and stay fiscally current up until this year (2025)
•Current mentions of beds and capacities are redacted. 2012 and 2020 had that information available.
In even small samples we are seeing violations that include mishandling of sexual misconduct, complaints about food portions, not enough toilets per person, etc.
Knowledge is power. Do we go on like this? Or do we reform?