Japanese-Americans Confront ICE Detention

Seattle

With the increase of the U.S. Trump/Musk pogroms against immigrants, Japanese and Japanese-Americans have increased their solidarity against roundups, detentions and deportations of migrant workers. In Seattle, 400 people marched in the International District/Chinatown protesting U.S. immigrant detention on February 19, the Day of Remembrance.

It’s the day in 1942, a few months after the U.S. entered World War II against Japan, when U.S. executive order 9066 was signed. President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment or imprisonment of Japanese-Americans who had emigrated to the United States and were living on the West Coast.

Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese-American organization that organized the march, honored the 125,000 people thrown into internment or concentration camps. They do this while working to end U.S. detention camps and all racist anti-migrant policies.

On Feb. 23, Tsuru for Solidarity collaborated with La Resistencia, which works on representing the protests of today’s detainees. They, along with supporters, held a protest in front of the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, which has been rebranded to the Northwest ICE Processing Center. This prison is now jammed with 1,500 migrant prisoners.

Maru Mora Villapando of La Resistencia exposed many of the abuses of the Geo Corp.-owned facility which is a federal torture facility.  Right now, she said speaking to a crowd of 250 people, there is no electrical power and the prisoners have no water.

Villapando said the prison is understaffed and prisoners aren’t getting the basics of humane treatment. They’re not getting medical treatment. Prisoners are no longer getting any information about their status in the legal system. Prisoners who have been told by judges they should be released aren’t getting released. Women prisoners who communicated to the rally by cell phone spoke of the inadequate health care and more.

Mary Abo, a Japanese-American woman formerly interned at the Minidoka, Idaho, camp, also spoke. Another speaker detailed the great legacy of resistance of prisoners at the former Tule Lake internment camp in California.

Tsuru for Solidarity and La Resistencia plan to hold a memorial on March 7 for Charles Leo Daniel, who died in the Tacoma ICE processing center after being cruelly held in solitary confinement for years. Daniel was from Trinidad and Tobago.