Overturned court ruling clears way for WA to inspect immigrant detention center

Yahoo

18 hours ago

A 'no trespassing' sign outside of Northwest ICE Processing Center. (Photo by Grace Deng/Washington State Standard)
Washington state should be allowed to enforce health and safety standards at the embattled immigrant detention center in Tacoma, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The decision overturns a lower court order blocking a 2023 state law that sought to provide greater oversight of conditions at the facility, including through unannounced state inspections. The detention center is run by the Florida-based GEO Group under a contract with the federal government.
With the state law, Democratic lawmakers looked to impose numerous new regulations on the facility, known as the Northwest ICE Processing Center. Among other requirements, the law mandated the detention center provide fresh fruits and vegetables, air conditioning and heat, free telecommunication services, weekly mental health evaluations and rooms with windows.
Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per violation. GEO says these standards go beyond requirements the company must follow under its contract.
The law also required the state departments of Health and Labor and Industries to conduct routine, unannounced inspections of the for-profit detention center, which holds immigrant detainees before deportation or release back into the United States. Labor and Industries inspected the site last summer with authority under a separate state law, and found no violations.
The policy followed an earlier effort to ban private detention facilities entirely statewide, but that statute was deemed unenforceable. So lawmakers turned to increasing oversight.
The 1,575-bed facility has a history of allegations of mistreatment, abuse and neglect of detainees. Seven potential cases of tuberculosis were recently reported there, according to state health officials. Access to medical care has long been a concern inside the facility.
It has come under renewed scrutiny as more detainees have been sent there with President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. The state and GEO, one of the biggest private detention center companies in the nation, have been enmeshed for years in various legal battles over the facility.
GEO's 2015 contract with the federal government awarded the company at least $700 million to operate the facility over the following decade.
The state Department of Health celebrated the ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying it allows the agency to investigate complaints of mistreatment and 'work toward safer, healthier conditions for everyone in these facilities.'
'We applaud the Ninth Circuit's decision affirming the Washington State Department of Health's authority to uphold basic health and safety standards in private detention facilities like the Northwest ICE Processing Center,' spokesperson Kara Kostanich said in an email.
Kostanich didn't say if the agency now has imminent plans to inspect the facility.
GEO and its attorney didn't respond to a request for comment.
The case served as a test of state versus federal power. The legal doctrine of 'intergovernmental immunity' holds that state laws can't unduly regulate federal activities.
One of the major controversies in whether the state had overstepped was determining the correct comparison for the Tacoma facility, the only private, for-profit detention center in Washington.
GEO said prisons are an apt comparison. U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle agreed, finding the law imposed an economic burden on GEO through standards the state doesn't apply to its own Department of Corrections.
The state countered that involuntary treatment facilities are a better parallel, as they also hold people in civil, not criminal, proceedings.
The three-judge appeals court panel sided with the state. The requirements Washington seeks to impose on GEO and these civil facilities are 'almost identical,' the judges found. But the judges will leave the comparison of mandated standards to the lower court.
Washington has also run into legal roadblocks because the law only applied to the Tacoma facility. Lawmakers sought to address this problem this year by expanding the definition of private detention centers to include ones run by nonprofits. So state law now also covers the Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Facility, near Spokane.
GEO moved to get the appeal dismissed in light of the new law, which took effect in May. The judges declined that request.
The appeals court judges note states can treat contractors more stringently than if facilities are run by the federal government.
'A state has greater ability to regulate a contractor of the federal government than to regulate the government itself,' Judge William Fletcher wrote in the opinion.
All three of the judges making Tuesday's decision were appointed by Democratic presidents, two by Bill Clinton and one by Barack Obama.
The Department of Justice, which has sided with GEO under both former President Joe Biden and Trump, declined to comment on the ruling.
The ruling is the second loss in as many weeks for GEO at the 9th Circuit.
Last week, the court declined to reconsider an earlier decision affirming that the company needed to pay more than $23 million for violating Washington's minimum wage law. GEO plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on that case.
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