The Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma is a privately-owned detention facility that operates under contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration & Customs Enforcement to house non-U.S. citizens who are apprehended and determined to need custodial supervision. The City urges its Congressional delegates to continue to pursue legislation that would end the use of privately-operated prisons and instead utilize available alternatives to immigration detention. The City applauds the leadership in Washington’s congressional delegation who introduced the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act that would restore dignity and justice to the broken detention system.
The City urges Congress to provide and ensure funding is accessible to cities to respond to the national opioid epidemic. Every day, an average of two Washington residents dies from an opioid-related overdose. Tacoma, one of the conveners of the Pierce County Opioid Task Force, is also one of six cities from across the country that was selected to participate in the National League of Cities Mayors’ Institute on Opioids.
In 2017, 39,773 people died from gun-related injuries in the United States; three quarters of all murders and approximately half of all suicides involved a firearm. Every year, 600 American women are shot to death by intimate partners. Finding and declaring that gun violence directly affects the city and its residents, the Tacoma City Council adopted a Firearms and Ammunition Tax. The City joins the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities in urging the President to advance critical legislation to reduce gun violence and promote public safety.