This research memo represents the first in a series reporting results of UWCHR’s new initiative on Human Rights at Home, which we hope will help increase transparency and inform human rights advocates, the public, and our elected leaders on immigrant rights issues in our state. As part of this effort, UWCHR has requested information from Customs

The present report summarizes the experience of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights in seeking to obtain information about immigration enforcement, placing this work in the larger context of nationwide access-to-information efforts in this sector. We begin by documenting patterns of secrecy and misinformation in immigration enforcement, then illustrate their impacts on human

In the Pacific Northwest, two county-run juvenile jails have been reaping revenue from the Trump administration’s family separation practices for years, while mounting an unusual effort to conceal these practices from the public: the Cowlitz County Youth Services Center in Longview, Washington, and the juvenile Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility (NORCOR), in The Dalles, Oregon.

In 2019 the University of Washington Center for Human Rights began a study of immigration arrests at courthouses in our state. This report is a preliminary presentation of findings, divided into four sections: extent of courthouse arrests in our state; the specific circumstances of the arrests, where known; the human rights concerns surfaced by this

2019’s Keep Washington Working (KWW) Act and 2020’s Courts Open to All Act (COTA) place Washington state at the forefront of national efforts to protect immigrant rights through state law. Yet the mere passage of these laws doesn’t mean they’re actually being enforced. After 18 months of research evaluating the implementation of KWW and COTA

At the request of immigrant community organizations, in 2018 we began research into deportation flights from King County International Airport (Boeing Field). Drawing in particular on our analysis of ICE Air’s database containing over 1.73 million records of passengers on privately-chartered flights, in April 2019 we published two research reports explaining the structure of the

At the request of immigrant community organizations in Washington state, in 2018 the University of Washington Center for Human Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for data about deportation flights operating at the King County International Airport (Boeing Field), and obtained an extract from ICE’s Alien Repatriation Tracking System (ARTS) specific to

Abuses in the Air looks at the overlap between deportation flights and collegiate and professional sports travel.

This report raises concerns of potential threats to immigrant rights and reproductive rights posed by the use of automated license plate recognition technology by law enforcement agencies in Washington state. The report surveys law enforcement agencies across Washington state on their use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including practices around data collection, retention, as