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| New Tacoma facility to house people targeted for deportation |
| By Seattle Times |
| Published: 03/01/2004 |
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On any given day, about 500 immigrants are being held in detention facilities throughout Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Some are awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge. Others are awaiting a plane ride back to their home country. While the number and makeup of detainees vary, the scenario is similar in regions across the United States as the government has stepped up efforts to find and deport illegal or criminal immigrants. A new detention center set to open April 14 in Tacoma, Wash. is among a growing number of new or expanding facilities across the country to house immigrants the government has targeted for deportation. The Northwest Detention Center, with a 500-bed capacity, will house men and women being held in federal facilities like the one along Airport Way South in Seattle as well as in county and city jails throughout this state and in Oregon and Alaska. The 140,000-square-foot center is going up on the site of a former meatpacking plant, once an environmental cleanup site in the Tacoma Tideflats. The complex will feature two courtrooms, a medical center, a recreational facility, four cellblocks and an administrative wing. "Our goal is to hold (people) for the briefest period of time to effect their removal from the country," said Phillip Crawford, field director for the Detention and Removal Operations branch within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. "We're not in the prison business," he said. "Our objective is not detention but removal from the U.S." |
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