ICE Detention Numbers Drop Sharply in Washington -- But Don't Be Fooled

Last June, the Trump administration's immigration detention center in Tacoma was so packed with people that dozens had to be shipped to an Alaska jail. The facility, designed to hold 1,575 people, was bursting at the seams during the administration's immigration crackdown.

As of last Friday, that number had dropped to 919.

The sharp decline is raising eyebrows, especially since ICE just agreed to a new contract with the GEO Group -- the Florida-based private prison corporation that runs the facility -- that actually increases capacity to 1,635 people. The contract, which runs through late October, is worth $69 million according to documents obtained by immigrant advocacy group La Resistencia.

Neither ICE nor GEO would explain what's happening. Both declined interview requests and offered no comment on why residential pods are consolidating and at least two units have closed.

"I don't know what's going on," said Lydia Zepeda, a member of Tacoma's Commission on Immigration and Refugee Affairs who visits detained people several times a week.

A Nationwide Pattern

The Tacoma facility isn't alone. ICE arrests and deportations have dropped across Washington state and the country in recent months, according to new data from the Deportation Data Project at the University of California.

A Seattle Times analysis of the data shows arrests in Washington fell by more than half since December, dropping to 226 in February. That's about 50 fewer than ICE arrested under the Biden administration in April 2023. Deportations and "voluntary departures" -- which allow people to leave without a removal order that can bar them from returning for up to 10 years -- also declined from about 370 in December to 255 in February.

The timing is suspicious.

Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE chief of staff under the Biden administration, said current officials appear to be responding to public backlash after a massive surge in enforcement -- particularly in Minneapolis, where ICE killed two U.S. citizens -- sparked outrage that could influence the midterm elections.

"They're clearly trying to take the temperature down," Fleischaker said. "That doesn't mean that they still aren't aggressively looking to arrest and deport people, or that the temperature stays down."

The Midterm Factor

The slowdown coincides with a congressional shutdown of Department of Homeland Security funding by Democrats. While that didn't stop ICE agents or private detention contractors like GEO from getting paid, it did halt paychecks for other department personnel who help process arrested immigrants.

"It isn't beyond imagining that the pace picks up again as soon as the midterms are over," Fleischaker said, especially if Homeland Security funding comes through. She emphasized that nothing suggests the administration has changed its stated goal to arrest and deport as many immigrants as possible without legal status.

While the administration claims to target the "worst of the worst," Fleischaker said no one has been taken off the table. In Washington, 47% of people arrested by ICE between the start of Trump's second term and March 10 have neither criminal convictions nor pending charges, according to the Deportation Data Project. Those taken into custody ranged in age from 2 to 71, including roughly 200 minors.

No Relief for Immigrants or Their Lawyers

Kathleen Carson, president of Seattle Indivisible, expects ICE activity will return to full speed before long. She said federal agents will likely be out in force when Seattle hosts World Cup games this summer.

"We don't want to be lulled into a false sense of complacency," Carson said.

Immigration lawyers aren't seeing any letup. "We're not seeing any decrease in the amount of work," said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

Since September, the nonprofit has filed 300 habeas petitions in U.S. District Court charging that people are being wrongfully held at the Tacoma facility. Two hundred of those concern immigrants denied bond that would allow them to be released while their cases are pending.

A U.S. District Court judge in Tacoma ruled in September that a novel legal theory pushed by the administration was wrongfully denying bond hearings. But immigration judges, who answer to the administration, have continued the practice unless habeas petitions for specific individuals are granted. Private attorneys and the Federal Public Defender's office have also filed habeas petitions, Adams noted.

The message is clear: ICE may be temporarily pulling back, but the machinery of mass detention and deportation remains fully operational. The only question is when the administration decides to flip the switch again.