Contact: Kiku Hughes, kikujhughes@gmail.com, (425) 248-0583; 

  Becca Asaki, basaki@tsuruforsolidarity.org, (443) 752-2831

IMMIGRANT RIGHTS GROUPS ON HUNGER STRIKE MEET WITH SENATOR MURRAY AND CANTWELL STAFF TO DEMAND IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF DANGEROUS ICE DETENTION CENTER FOLLOWING DEATH, MULTIPLE SUICIDE ATTEMPTS INSIDE

La Resistencia and Tsuru for Solidarity will meet with Murray staffers on Tuesday afternoon to discuss immediate action needed to close Northwest Detention Center. A press conference with leadership from both organizations will follow.

WHO: La Resistencia, Tsuru for Solidarity

WHEN: Tuesday, March 19th, 2024 at 5:00 pm

WHERE: Seattle Federal Building, 915 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98174

WHAT: La Resistencia and Tsuru for Solidarity requested a meeting with Murray and Cantwell staffers immediately after learning about the death of Charles Leo Daniel, a detainee inside Northwest Detention Center on Thursday, March 7th. Leadership from both organizations will hold a press conference outside the Seattle Federal Building following the meeting to share what was discussed and what actions, if any, Murray or Cantwell will be taking to prevent future casualties inside NWDC.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, March 19, 2024 — Maru Mora Villalpando, founder of La Resistencia, and Michael Ishii, founder of Tsuru for Solidarity, will will hold a press conference outside the Seattle Federal Building where they will announce they will go on indefinite hunger strike until Senators Murray and Cantwell make public statements regarding the dire conditions inside NWDC following an emergency meeting with Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell’s staff on Tuesday, March 19. Reporters will be briefed on the situation both inside NWDC and at the encampment currently being maintained just outside the facility, where organizers have committed to 24/7 monitoring of the dangerous site. They will also learn the response from Senator Murray and Cantwell’s staff and what actions are being taken to end the violence at NWDC, if any. This comes just days after the press conference held outside NWDC last Friday, in which Angelina Godoy Director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights disclosed the results of a study which found that Charles Leo Daniel, the man found dead in his cell on March 7th, had been kept in solitary confinement for nearly 4 years. 

Hunger Strikers Demands to Senators Murray and Cantwell:

1.     Conduct an independent investigation completed by April 7, one month after the death of Mr. Daniel

2.     Release a public statement from offices immediately

3.     Come to Northwest Detention Center and speak to hunger strikers 

4.     Decrease funding to ICE and end the contract for NWDC

“I started a hunger strike six days ago calling for the shutdown of the Northwest Detention Center in support of the hunger strikers and demanding an independent investigation into Mr. Daniel’s death,” says Maru Mora Villalpando, founder of La Resistencia. “Today I am announcing that my hunger strike will be indefinite until Senator Murray and Cantwell make a public statement on all the horrors that are happening in the detention center. If I end up hospitalized, it's on them.”

“The Japanese American community knows what it is like to experience the punitive use of solitary confinement for resistance while being detained in U.S. concentration camps,” says Michael Ishii, founder of Tsuru for Solidarity. “People detained in the Tule Lake stockades initiated their hunger strike in response to worsening conditions in their segregated unit. Just like the people inside NWDC now, they were isolated and deprived of access to basic human needs. And just like people inside NWDC now, they fought back in any way they could. I carry the legacy of Japanese American resistance by going on hunger strike alongside Maru today.”

The Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma is one of the largest for-profit immigrant detention centers in the country, run by a corporation called GEO Group. Its conditions have been documented as being extraordinarily inhumane, and people inside NWDC on average spend more time in detention, have less chance at bailing out, and are placed in solitary confinement for much longer than the national average. According to the UW Center for Human Rights, based on ICE’s own data, five of the top ten longest solitary confinement stretches have taken place at NWDC. Detainees have organized numerous hunger strikes to protest the inhuman conditions over the years, most recently over 300 detainees went on hunger strike in response to the death of Mr. Daniel. La Resistencia and Tsuru for Solidarity leaders including Maru Mora Villalpando have participated in solidarity hunger strikes since Tuesday, March 12. 

Since Mr. Daniel’s death, there have been two confirmed suicide attempts inside NWDC, and several other suspected attempts, as well as multiple visits from ambulances and one major fire outbreak. La Resistencia and Tsuru for Solidarity documented GEO Group guards ushering detainees back inside the burning building, rather than evacuating them. Angelina Godoy noted in her press conference that there is no record of an established evacuation plan for detainees in the event of a fire or other emergency at NWDC.

It is clear that the lives of people detained inside NWDC are not being protected, and the for-profit facility is incentivised to keep people imprisoned for as long as they can. There is no right to a speedy trial inside NWDC, and Washington state citizens deserve to know that their tax dollars are being handed over to a Florida-based corporation that routinely violates human and constitutional rights. 

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About the Organizers 

Tsuru for Solidarity is a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates and their allies working to end detention sites and support front-line immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies. Learn more at www.tsuruforsolidarity.org.

La Resistencia is a grassroots organization based in Washington State working to end the detention of immigrants and stop deportations. Originally founded in 2014 to support a hunger strike launched by people detained in Tacoma, Washington to protest their confinement, La Resistencia members support and engage with people detained at the Northwest Detention Center who organize for their own survival and in protest against the detention and deportation regime. We are a multi-racial, multi-status, multi-gender group that organizes across the prison barrier. Our goal is to shut down the NWDC, and to end all detention and deportation in Washington State. Learn more at www.laresistencianw.org/