OLYMPIA, WA – Zahid Chaudhry, a U.S. Army veteran, was held in the Northwest ICE Processing Center for four months last year.

He was released in December. While inside, he saw multiple fellow detainees try to kill themselves, food was “inadequate at best” and “medical care was often medical violence,” his wife Melissa Chaudhry recently told Washington state lawmakers.

“He directly witnessed that the health conditions inside are appalling,” she said.

The state has spent years litigating its ability to regulate the privately-run federal detention center, which holds immigrant detainees before deportation or release back into the United States. Attention on the facility and longstanding concerns over the treatment of detainees have amplified amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Now, Democratic legislators want to fine the Tacoma facility’s operator, The GEO Group, for not allowing state health inspectors inside.

They’ve also floated a 1% surcharge on income from operating a private detention center like this one.

And Democrats want GEO to provide the state with more information about crises inside the facility.

The proposals have all been heard in legislative committees recently, but have varying chances of reaching the finish line this year in the Legislature.

GEO didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Taxes and fines

The state and The GEO Group have been battling in court for years. GEO has taken issue with a 2023 state law aimed at providing greater oversight of the controversial facility.

Among other requirements, the law called for GEO to provide detainees with fresh fruits and vegetables, air conditioning and heat, free telecommunication services, weekly mental health evaluations and rooms with windows. It also required the state Department of Health to conduct routine, unannounced inspections of the facility.

The company argued the law singled out the detention center. So last year, lawmakers expanded it to include private, not-for-profit facilities, which covers the Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Facility in eastern Washington.

Last summer, a federal appeals court ruled that state regulators should be allowed to enforce health and safety standards at the for-profit detention center in Tacoma. This month, a panel of judges denied GEO’s request for a rehearing from the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

GEO asked to pause enforcement of the court’s order as it prepares a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The appeals court this week denied that request for a pause, as well.

The state Department of Health tried to enter the detention center in September, but was turned away. At the time, state officials said they’d received thousands of complaints about the detention center, with drinking water quality being a major concern. Other issues raised to the agency include access to medication, sanitation and concerns that seem to stem from crowding, like the number of beds being put into some rooms.

Senate Bill 6286 would allow the health department to fine private detention centers that don’t grant access to inspectors. The penalty would start at $1,000 per day for the first 30 days after an inspection refusal, then rise to $10,000 per day for the next 30 days and $15,000 per day after that.

The money would go into a new account to provide aid to people or the families of people wrongfully detained or harmed in detention facilities. This assistance could include housing, food, legal services, wage replacement, financial compensation or grants to nonprofits serving immigrant communities, among other uses.

Melissa Chaudhry, who ran for Congress in 2024 against U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Bellevue, and is campaigning again this year, argued the bill provides “accountability, justice and repair.”

“Compliance protects health and if they refuse compliance, the fines should help the families left holding the bag,” Zahid Chaudhry told the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week.

The bill has support from new Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen.

“When private detention facilities operate for profit without meaningful financial consequences for violations, the community and the public ultimately bear the risk,” he told a Senate committee last week. “Meaningful fines send a clear message that private detention facilities cannot treat compliance as optional.”

House Bill 2713 takes a different approach to making the detention center pay. It would levy a 1% business and occupation tax surcharge on the taxable income of private detention operators in the state.

It’s unclear how much money the tax would bring in. But The GEO Group’s last contract with ICE to run the 1,575-bed Tacoma facility was worth $700 million over 10 years.

Amid concerns that Martin Hall could also have to pay the tax, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, clarified that she didn’t want her legislation to cover nonprofit-run centers.

The bills would bring in revenue, so are immune from the deadlines that have killed numerous proposals so far this legislative session.

Oversight

Another bill looks to require private detention facilities to report abuse and neglect allegations, as well as deaths and serious injuries to the state Department of Health. Two people were reported dead in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in 2024.

House Bill 2464 would also require local law enforcement agencies to submit reports to the agency annually with information about responses to privately-run detention centers.

Immigrant rights advocates support the legislation. Sen. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, argues it’s an issue of human rights.

“We need the information and we need, at some point, our Department of Health to be able to go and actually go inside this facility so we know people are safe,” she said in committee Wednesday.

Sen. Leonard Christian, R-Spokane Valley, believes it’s unfair.

The legislation is “just going after and trying to attack the folks who are doing the work that’s asked of them by the administration at a higher level,” he said. “They’re providing a service.”

This bill is further along in the legislative process than the proposed fines or tax. Last week, it passed the House on a party-line vote with Democratic support. On Wednesday, it advanced past a Senate committee.

This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.