Introduction In recent years, local and state governments in Washington have taken important legislative and executive action to protect vulnerable residents from rights abuses. Many of these actions, such as the so-called “sanctuary” laws of Keep Washington Working (2019) and Courts Open to All (2020) Acts, seek to protect the rights of migrants by limiting

We sat down with the three student researchers behind “Abuses in the Air” to ask them about their experiences working on this report.  Here’s what they had to say:   Andrea Marcos: Can you tell us how the “Abuses in the Air” report started out? Trevor Helmy: It started with someone reaching out to the

Last week, on September 20, 2022, we filed a lawsuit against DHS and ICE for failure to lawfully respond to FOIA requests. ICE’s stonewalling of our FOIA requests leaves us with no other option but to bring suit against the agency. We bring FOIA litigation because we know that access to information is a human

This spring quarter, the Benjamin Linder Fellowship has allowed me the opportunity to continue the research into the enforcement of the Keep Washington Working (KWW) and Courts Open To All (COTA) acts which UWCHR’s Immigrant Rights Observatory team began conducting in 2019. Their August 2021 report, Protecting Immigrant Rights: Is Washington’s Law Working?, analyzed the

This report is part of a series of research reports by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights examining Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations nationwide.  Download additional resources and one pagers: Haiti: Sports Travel & U.S. Deportation of Haitian Asylum-Seekers Syracuse University & Haitian Deportations Texas Universities & Haitian Deportations Introduction Every week,

This report is part of a series regarding Human Rights Conditions at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, based on ongoing research efforts and released to highlight initial findings in the urgent context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contents: • Introduction • Background, Methodology, and Human Rights Standards • Sanitation of Food and Laundry •

Research Informs Debates Over Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center For years, people detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma have reported human rights concerns, though a lack of transparency regarding the facility’s operations has made these difficult to investigate independently. Recent years have seen Congressional inquiries, cases in federal court, and numerous campaigns by advocacy

When I first learned about the Freedom of Information Act, I pictured something resembling a high-security vending machine: you punch in what you want and, instantly, pages upon pages of high-level, top-secret information are dispensed on command. Unfortunately, this paints a somewhat unrealistic picture of the work we do at the UW Center for Human

A new set of 94 declassified U.S. government documents have been added to the UW Center for Human Rights’ El Salvador FOIA Collection maintained by UW Libraries. The documents in the new tranche cover a wide range of topics, shedding light on the depth of the U.S.’s role in Salvadoran military operations and revealing a previously unknown cache of intelligence records, of which the UWCHR is now seeking declassification.

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.