Last night, Seattle Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal announced a “mass mobilization” to oppose the Trump Administration’s separation of families at the border. The actions are planned for June 30 in Washington, D.C., and around the country. A local event is listed online, but not many details are available yet.
Meanwhile, local immigration activists are urging people to show up to another action the following day—and to remember that long before Trump, a private prison has been holding hundreds of immigrant detainees right in our back yard.
Northwest Detention Center Resistance is hosting a solidarity day at the detention center in Tacoma on July 1. Maru Mora Villalpando, an organizer with NWDC Resistance, said the group planned the event before the announcement of mass national actions on June 30. The group is continuing with its plans in order to show support for immigrant detainees, even if they are not parents or asylum seekers.
“Look beyond just this specific moment,” said Mora Villalpando, who herself faces potential deportation by ICE and whose information was shared with ICE by the Washington State Department of Licensing.
The NWDC is a private prison that holds more than 1,500 detained immigrants. Detainees are held while they await immigration proceedings (proceedings in which they often have no legal representation). In recent years, detainees there have launched hunger strikes to draw attention to conditions inside the facility including medical care and food.
“People forget that the separation of families has been happening since the inception of this country,” Mora Villalpando said, citing genocide against Native Americans, “and for 15 years since the inception of ICE.”
NWDC Resistance is led by undocumented people. The group holds solidarity rallies most Saturdays at the detention center from 8 to 11 am or 1 to 4 pm.
“As long as you make people criminals and keep them in cages, this is not going to stop. It’s going to get worse,” Mora Villalpando said. “We need to make people understand and see the big picture.”
