Tacoma Volunteers Welcome 1,500+ Freed Immigrants Each Year

When immigrants walk through the gates of Tacoma's Northwest ICE Processing Center, they find volunteers waiting with hot drinks, warm tents, and hope.

Advocates for Immigrants in Detention Northwest has coordinated this welcome center since 2014. Volunteers like Bill Lloyd, who's been coming for 10 years, staff shifts every day to help released detainees navigate their first moments of freedom.

The setup is simple but powerful. Two rustic tents warmed by propane heaters offer patio chairs and folding tables loaded with snacks. A well-equipped RV at the curb provides Wi-Fi, phone chargers, and a lifeline to family members waiting anxiously for news.

"What's so rewarding is seeing how happy people are when they get out," Lloyd said. Released immigrants arrive carrying their belongings in thin plastic garbage bags, often wearing clothes that no longer fit or match the weather.

Volunteers offer practical help first. They coordinate plane tickets home, arrange rides to nearby communities, and provide that crucial phone call to family. Sometimes people have been detained so long they've forgotten their own phone's passcode.

The welcome center also stocks jackets, shoes, clean clothes, and backpacks. Operations manager Aiden Perkinson explained that many arrive desperate for something clean to change into after months inside.

The facility was designed to process 500 people short-term. It now holds roughly 1,500, with many reporting months-long stays in difficult conditions.

Yet volunteers see one to four releases during typical shifts, and sometimes many more at once. Some released immigrants are wrapped in family embraces at the tents. Others walk away alone, starting fresh chapters.

Why This Inspires

These volunteers show up day after day because they see individuals, not statistics. They recognized a gap in 2009 when community members realized released detainees would simply be let out in Tacoma's industrial Tideflats with no transportation or plan.

The Tideflats are isolated, cut off from downtown by waterways and surrounded by warehouses and port terminals. For someone just released with no phone access or local knowledge, the area can feel like another kind of wilderness.

So volunteers created something better. They built a place where relief, tears, smiles, and wonder can all exist together in those overwhelming first moments of freedom.

Many detainees gravitate toward the tents rather than the RV, Perkinson noted, because after months of limited yard time, people simply want to be outside.

The volunteers are happy to oblige, offering both open air and open hearts to strangers taking their first breaths of freedom.