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Keeping Watch on the Immigration Court at
The Northwest Detention Center
by Peggy Herman
On April 7, 2004, Immigration
and Custom Enforcement
(ICE) opened its newest
immigration prison, the
Northwest Detention Center
(NWDC) under the management
of its Office of Detention
and Removal (DRO).
NWDC, a for-profit prison,
built at a cost of $115 million
on the industrial tideflats of
Tacoma, Washington, is owned
and operated by the GEO
Group Inc., a multinational corrections corporation that
The Northwest Detention Center is a private immigration prison
located in Tacoma, WA.
contracts with the DRO to run the day-in day-out operations.
The prison was originally designed for between 700 and 870
detainees. By 2007, the capacity had been expanded to 1,061 as
part of a national enforcement strategy dedicated to “removing
all removable aliens by 2012.” GEO recently announced plans to
further expand the facility to house 1,500 detainees.
When the NWDC first opened, the Immigration Judges (IJs)
from the Seattle Immigration Court, located 35 miles away,
heard the docket via teleconferencing equipment. Detainees
were brought to the courtroom in Tacoma to answer the
government’s charges that they were subject to deportation. All
communications between the IJ and the government’s attorney
were done by video. The detainee’s attorney—if s/he could
afford one—had to decide whether to appear in the courtroom
in Seattle or in Tacoma. Earlier this year, the Tacoma
Immigration Court was established. Since then, all of the
hearings for detained individuals have been heard in person.
Groups concerned about the initial organization of the
Immigration Court and the increasing difficulty in accessing legal
representation caused by the move of the detention center from
Seattle contacted the NLG in late 2004. The NLG agreed to
help organize a CourtWatch project. It was modeled after the
Boston NLG CourtWatch project established in 2001 in the
aftermath of 9/11. The Chicago Appleseed and the Legal
Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago study conducted
in 2004 that looked at the impact of the use of videoconferencing
in immigration proceedings in the Chicago Immigration
Court was also used as a model.
CourtWatchers at the NWDC
receive full training on unique
aspects of immigration court
proceedings. When immigrants
who are undocumented or have
criminal convictions are picked
up by ICE or DRO agents, they
face a very different justice system
than the one in civil or criminal
courts. The IJs in Immigration
Court do not preside over trials;
they conduct hearings. The Rules
of Evidence in trials do not apply
in these hearings. There is no
opportunity to have a jury decide the case.
Unlike almost all civil and criminal cases, immigration court
files are not public. There is no public record of who is in the
detention centers in the United States as required of prisons and
jails. When immigration detainees appear in immigration court,
there is no presumption of innocence. They have the burden to
prove they have the right to remain in the country. Although
those who appear at the Tacoma Immigration Court are held in
jail cells, they have no right to an attorney at the government’s
expense. Significantly, very few detainees can afford to hire a
private lawyer. Most immigrants in removal proceedings face the
IJ and the government’s attorney alone. With so few protections
in place to ensure that due process protections are followed,
NWDC CourtWatchers provide an invaluable service by adding
some measure of transparency to the process.
As the Bush administration has increased the targeting of
undocumented immigrants through workplace raids and a
agreements between ICE and local law enforcement agencies,
more and more citizens in the Northwest have begun to
understand the importance of the NWDC CourtWatch Project.
Law school students at Seattle University and University of
Washington and immigrant advocates have asked to expand the
project so that immigrants in removal proceedings in Seattle
will also benefit from having witnesses to their Immigration
Court hearings •
Peggy Herman is the Northwest co-Regional Vice President. For
more information, contact her at peggylherman@cablespeed.com
10 • GUILD NOTES • WINTER 2008