Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has transferred the leaders of a Tuesday hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma to an unknown location. Advocates say their removal was retaliatory.
The hunger strike was organized by 44-year-old Rogelio Enrique Bolufé Izquierdo, a Cuban-born NWDC detainee and leader of the grassroots group Unión de Secuestrados por ICE (USI), whose name translates to the Union of those Kidnapped by ICE.
Bolufé formed the group in April while detained at a CoreCivic detention center in Torrance County, New Mexico. He organized a hunger strike, which is why he was transferred to the NWDC in May. Now it appears he has been transferred again, says Josefina Mora-Cheung, director of organizing at La Resistencia.
The ICE detainee locator tool did list Bolufé’s location; ICE did not respond to The Stranger’s calls or emails for information.
Mora-Cheung says Bolufé and the USI told La Resistencia last week that more than 200 immigrants would participate in the hunger strike at NWDC, which is run by the private prison company GEO Group. They were demanding ICE respect their constitutional rights, including their right to worship. According to Mora-Cheung, Mormons are not being allowed to practice their faith, and the facility is refusing to serve kosher and halal food to Jews and Muslims, or accommodating Ramadan fasts.
But Bolufé and other USI leaders were whisked away by ICE hours after the strike began. Their sudden transfers led many participants to abandon the strike, fearing retaliation, Mora-Cheung says.
These sudden transfers are new, at least at NWDC, says Mora-Cheung.
“People are placed in isolation, or people are sent to a different unit, but we’ve never seen this,” Mora-Cheung said.
Bolufé’s is not the only ICE detainee organizing hunger strikes. In the last week, immigrants have launched strikes in detention centers in Adelanto, California and Newark, New Jersey. At the NWDC, hunger strikes doubled between 2025 and 2026 according to La Resistencia. There have been 15 so far this year.
However, USI’s action was only the second time a self-organized group at NWDC has struck without any outside assistance. Mora-Cheung says this wave of hunger strikes appears to be spontaneous and not nationally coordinated. Their increasing frequency is likely a response to worsening conditions in detention centers under this administration.
“People are organizing amongst themselves to really fight back and call to end the horrific conditions and life-threatening conditions that people have been facing,” says Mora-Cheung.
Independent investigations have revealed troubling details about the conditions inside. The UW Center for Human Rights has found evidence of poor food quality, sanitation issues, and alleged mishandling of sexual abuse.
Overcrowding may be exacerbating these problems. According to The Seattle Times, the average number of detainees at the NWDC has nearly doubled, from between 600 and 900 on any given day to more than 1,400. The facility’s maximum capacity is 1,575.
In April, Washington State filed a preliminary injunction demanding ICE and operator GEO Group allow the state department of health to inspect the facility.
For La Resistencia, the protests inside NWDC underscore the urgency of the situation.
“We’re very alarmed about how many hunger strikes there have been, and we think it really signifies that people should be paying attention and should be exposing these conditions, and helping us spread the word about what detained people inside are telling us,” Mora-Cheung said.