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 (detainees) clawed windows, desperate to escape,” Houston-Brown said. “I struggled to breathe.”
The ventilation formula between the two teams continued to work, Houston-Brown said. He called 911 and the Public Defender’s Office on a unit phone, asking for help. Houston-Brown said the 911 call was unsuccessful and the public defender’s workplace said he doesn’t know what he can 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 Center for Human Rights.
Experts and advocates gathered outside the structure to announce the release of a partial video taken of the Feb. 1 incident, received through a lawsuit filed in July 2023 in Seattle federal district court through the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project following a public records request. The federal government has not done so. Officials have not yet submitted all documents in response 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 averaged 374 inmates, according to a May 2023 report. Department of Homeland Security report.
In a statement, a GEO spokesperson said “we take the use of chemical agents with the utmost seriousness, and our staff follow strict federal standards that govern their use.” ICE said officials authorized “non-lethal use of force” after “careful consideration.”
“A number of detainees housed at the NWIPC have been convicted of serious crimes, such as assault, child exploitation, and murder. The lawful removal of these noncitizens should not be impeded either by the dangerous actions of any detainees or inaccurate information free of context,” an ICE spokesperson said.
In the 40-minute video, guards are seen waiting to enter the F4 unit, where 4 men refused to move in protest, according to ICE records received through the UW Cinput for Human Rights.
It’s a 3-man escort! A user yells, not unusual criminal jargon for an isolation unit or “separate ho unit. “
Northwest ICE Processing Center uses solitary confinement more than any other ICE facility, according to Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, director of UW’s Center for Human Rights. GEO Group and ICE maintain that detention centers are not 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 says. “I’m not resisting,” he replies. “Stop resisting,” the guard says again. The video does not show a clear 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 as if they were going to war,” said Maru Mora Villalpando, who leads La Resistencia, a group calling for the facility’s closure. “We don’t see the need at all to have gassed them. There is absolutely no excuse to send a SWAT team.”
At least five other people who were detained at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in the February 2023 incident are still there today, said Villalpando, who remains in close contact with detainees at 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 shattered by the gas, causing 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 depositions that doctors cleared the detainees of any injuries without delay after the incident.
According to Villalpando, La Resistencia contacted the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights and asked them, because of their experience, to record a request for the public recording of videos and other documents about the Feb. 1 incident. The outlet got no response, so they asked the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project to register 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 request.
“We haven’t won the video max yet,” Adams said.
Court documents filed through ICE imply that they processed and released 100 minutes of video. There are about 12 hours of video to be released at the request of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the firm said in court documents.
“ICE is not trying to hide anything about what happened during the incident in question,” the agency said in a Jan. 29 status report.
Houston-Brown, who filed a complaint signed by 26 other inmates opposed to ICE about the incident, said he was aware of a video recording that showed how much the fuel affected him.
“They gave me five feet away from the door, from outside the door, and I collapsed,” Houston-Brown said. “Get the video of the covered walkway right outside the door. Obviously they noticed me lying on the ground and a guard telling me to get up. I tried to get up 3 times and couldn’t get back on my feet.
On Nov. 16, 2023, U. S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson ordered the Department of Homeland Security to produce all records by Jan. 31. However, federal officials are asking Evanson for an extension until April 12, raising technical difficulties that they say are slowing down efforts. blurring 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.