At the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, our research team is examining the human rights implications of contemporary immigration enforcement in Washington state.
At a time of heightened concern about immigrant rights, it is more important than ever to understand the policies our government has implemented at the local, state, and federal level to handle immigration, and to examine the effects of these policies on the lives and liberties of all Washingtonians.
Read our most recent reports and updates regarding this initiative below.
For a full list of all UWCHR reports, visit our publications page.
November 30, 2020
The UWCHR has obtained documents that provide a detailed look at the use of solitary confinement (also known as segregation) in the Northwest Detention Center. These documents, to our knowledge the first of their kind to have been released about any ICE detention facility in the United States, permit a deeper understanding of how segregation is used than has been previously available.
October 21, 2020
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) has launched a new research project to monitor compliance with state laws seeking to protect immigrant rights. The UWCHR’s “Immigrant Rights Observatory” will use public records research and community partnerships to investigate how local and state government agencies have implemented provisions of the Keep Washington Working
April 22, 2020
Cowlitz County Youth Services Center in Longview, WA, and the juvenile Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility (NORCOR), in The Dalles, OR, are two of only three facilities in the nation where immigrant children who are taken from their families by ICE are detained, without access to due process or the protections mandated for migrant youth under the 1997 Flores Agreement.
April 16, 2020
UWCHR reviews documentary evidence substantiating longstanding allegations of medical neglect at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA.
March 27, 2020
Immigrants detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA have consistently reported sanitation issues including spoiled food and dirty laundry, which raise grave health concerns in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 27, 2020
Human rights concerns at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA follow a national pattern of substandard conditions in immigration detention.
March 4, 2020
In February the Department of Justice sued King County, WA to reopen Boeing Field in Seattle for deportation flights. Later that week, the UWCHR released a video explainer, produced by UW students and alumni, giving background on the ICE Air deportation flight network.
October 25, 2019
In recent days many have focused a great deal of attention to the conditions under which migrants—including many children—are being held along the U.S.-Mexico border. Yet far fewer people are aware of the extent to which interrelated rights concerns crop up right here in Washington state. Student researchers at the UWCHR have set out to
October 16, 2019
Across Washington state, ICE and Border Patrol are increasingly carrying out immigration enforcement arrests at or near courthouses, raising serious concerns about access to justice for all Washingtonians.
August 20, 2019
The advent of regular ICE Air deportation and detainee transfer flights via Yakima Air Terminal-McAllister Field has deepened Yakima’s role in immigration enforcement in the Pacific Northwest, but the flights build on prior infrastructure centered on the pipeline between Yakima County jail and the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.