On Feb. 1, 2023, Jemal Houston-Brown woke up on her cell phone at a federal immigration detention center in Tacoma to the sound of screaming. It was around 3 a. m. , and the guards had spread chemical agents in a room just below hers.
“Some (inmates) scratched at the windows, desperate to escape,” Houston-Brown said. “I was breathing. “
The ventilation formula between the two sets continued to work, Houston-Brown said. She called 911 and the unit’s public defender’s work phone, asking for help. Houston-Brown said the 911 call was unsuccessful and the public defender’s office said it didn’t know what it could do.
Chemical agents — a set of ingredients called tear fuel — were released to quell a protest over confiscated razor blades, an ICE spokesperson said. The facility is controlled through The GEO Group, a private company under contract with U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Houston-Brown shared her story outdoors at an ICE locker in Seattle on Thursday, exactly one year after the incident, one of more than 70 uses of force documented by the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights.
Experts and advocates were gathered outside of the building to announce the release of a partial video taken of the Feb. 1 incident, which was obtained through a July 2023 complaint filed in Seattle federal district court by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project over a public records request the federal government failed to fulfill. Officials have yet to produce every record responsive to the organization’s request.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is the for-profit federal detention center in Washington and one of the largest in the country, with a capacity of approximately 1,575 people. From mid-2021 to 2022, the facility had an average of 374 inmates, according to a May 2023 Department of Homeland Security report.
In a statement, a GEO spokesperson said that “we take the use of chemical agents with the utmost seriousness and that our corps of workers adheres to the strict federal criteria governing their use. “ICE said legal officials “use non-lethal force” agents after “careful consideration. “
“Several inmates housed at the NWIPC have been convicted of serious crimes, including assault, child exploitation, and murder. Lawful deportation of those noncitizens will not be precluded by harmful movements of inmates or erroneous data taken out of context. ” an ICE spokesperson said.
In the 40-minute video, guards are seen waiting to enter unit F4, where 4 men refused to move in protest, according to ICE records received through the UW Cinput for Human Rights.
“SEG, SEG, SEG! It’s a three-man escort!” one person shouts, using common prison slang to refer to a solitary confinement unit, or “Segregated Housing Unit.”
The Northwest ICE Processing Center uses solitary confinement more than any other ICE facility, according to Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, director of the Center for Human Rights at the University of Washington. GEO Group and ICE argue that detention centers are prisons.
Guards can be seen yelling “come down” while dressed in gear and weapons. The 4 inmates descend a flight of stairs while a dozen guards surround them. The guards put a balaclava on at least one detainee and tied his handcuffs.
“Stop resisting,” a guard said. I can’t resist,” he replies. “Stop resisting,” the guard repeats. The video does not show a transparent view of the detainee as he is surrounded by guards.
You can hear other people coughing loudly. The faces of inmates and guards are blurred and the sound is intermittently muted.
“It’s like they’re going to war,” said Maru Mora Villalpando, who runs La Resistencia, an organization calling for the closure of the facility. “We don’t see the need to feed them at all. Surely there is no excuse to send a SWAT team.
At least five people who were detained at Northwest ICE Processing Center during the Feb. 2023 incident are still there today, said Villalpando, who keeps in close contact with detainees in the facility.
“They feel like at least there will be an apology,” Villalpando said.
Houston-Brown said medical negligence at the facility exacerbated the gas’ effects on her health. After his, in June 2023, a doctor sent him to intensive care for six days.
“My lungs were destroyed by the gas, which caused me constant chest pain and coughing. My doctor couldn’t, he hadn’t died in custody,” Houston-Brown said, adding that his liver and kidneys were on the verge of failure.
ICE and GEO said in separate statements that medical staff cleared detainees of all injuries immediately following the incident.
According to Villalpando, La Resistencia reached out to UW’s Center for Human Rights and asked them to file a public records request for video and other documentation of the Feb. 1 incident because of their expertise. The center did not hear back, so they asked Northwest Immigrant Rights Project to file a request, said Matt Adams, the organization’s legal director.
When there was no response, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed a complaint in federal court. The component video is the first video published as a component of the application.
“We haven’t won the video max yet,” Adams said.
Court documents filed by ICE say they have processed and released 100 minutes of video. There are approximately 12 hours of video documentation that must be released under the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s request, the agency says in court filings.
“ICE is trying to conceal anything about what happened in the incident in question,” the firm said in a Jan. 29 scenario report.
Houston-Brown, who filed a complaint signed by 26 other inmates opposed to ICE about the incident, said she was aware of a video recording showing how much the fuel affected her.
“I got within five feet from the door – from outside the door – and I collapsed,” Houston-Brown said. “Get the video footage of the breezeway right outside the door. You can clearly see me laying on the ground and a guard telling me to get up. I attempted to get up three times and I couldn’t get back on my feet.”
On November 16, 2023, US District Judge Kymberly Evanson ordered the Department of Homeland Security to produce all records by January 31. However, federal officials are asking Evanson for an extension until April 12, posing technical difficulties that they say are slowing efforts. blur faces to people’s privacy.
“The video files obtained through ICE processing were so degraded, and more degraded than expected, that the software could not perform as well or track the faces properly,” the document says.
A court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 6 to discuss the prestige of the case.
Villalpando said the congressional delegation in Washington is concerned about helping to speed up the public filing procedure and hold a hearing to investigate the incident.
Democratic members of the congressional delegation in Washington applied the law to situations at ICE facilities. But Villalpando said it was “not enough to introduce a bill that leads nowhere. “State lawmakers have tried to shut down the facility and give it more oversight, yet they have faced demanding legal situations from GEO.
“We will continue fighting and please don’t forget: Every February 1, we’re gonna keep coming back until that place is shut down,” Villalpando said.