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, & Human Rights Standards • Sanitation of Food & Laundry •

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.

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.

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

Letter from the Director I‘m not going to lie—it’s been a tough year for human rights. It seems like every day there’s another reason to be discouraged about the state of our world, whether at home or abroad. On one particularly dark day this past February as I prepared to teach my human rights class,

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.

A newly-released Department of Homeland Security document reveals allegations of serious abuses on ICE deportation flights, including accounts of mistreatment, excessive force, due process violations, and deaths.

Each year, “ICE Air” removes tens of thousands of people from the US via a network of private charter flights. The UW Center for Human Rights is making public an ICE database regarding these flights and documenting the corporations and municipalities participating in ICE’s deportation flights.

Key findings Inmate booking and release data from Pierce County jails shows that during the period from October 2016 through July 2018, over 188 inmates were the subject of detainer requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Latinx inmates are heavily overrepresented in the population subjected to ICE detainers. Statistical analysis shows that, when controlling

SEATTLE — In Pierce County jails, inmates targeted by Immigration & Customs Enforcement spend more than three times longer in jail than other inmates with similar charges, according to research by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, a disparity which raises significant human rights and policy concerns. The Center’s new report, “Unequal Justice: