100 signatures reached
To: Mayor Strickland & Tacoma City Council
Stop Human Rights Abuses at the Northwest Detention Center!
We call on the City of Tacoma to take responsibility for ensuring the public health and safety crisis that the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) poses -- before the Emergency Ordinance barring expansion expires on September 9, 2017.
Specifically, Tacoma City Council should: modify Tacoma Municipal Code to ensuring that residential facilities (including immigrant detention centers and juvenile detention centers) should only be located in areas zoned residential; renew the emergency ordinance to prevent expansion; and revoke GEO’s business license.
Why is this important?
The current hunger strikes by people detained at the NWDC have brought renewed attention to the deplorable conditions at the GEO-owned facility. By putting their health on the line to highlight human rights abuses, the hunger strikers have created the imperative for those of us on the outside to respond to their urgent demands. The detention center affects not only the 1,575 people who can be held any given day, but also their children, families, and neighbors who form the backbone of our communities.
You can read the full letter at: https://www.scribd.com/document/352037160/NWDCR-Tacoma-Letter-2017
How it will be delivered
We will deliver the petition by hand to the Mayor's office in Tacoma on September 1, 2017.
Reasons for signing