140+ Detainees Launch Fourth 2026 Hunger Strike at Tacoma as Congresswomen Inspect and ICE Weighs Taking Facility From GEO

More than 140 detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma began their fourth hunger strike of 2026 on August 13, protesting food contaminated with plastic, metal, and hair. Representatives Maxine Dexter and Emily Randall conducted an unannounced inspection on August 16. Washington Governor Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown were separately seeking a court order to permit state health inspections at the GEO Group-operated facility. KUOW reported that ICE may be positioned to take direct operational control of the facility from GEO.

Four hunger strikes in eight months at a single facility is a measure of how little the internal grievance process resolves — the strike is the only channel that produces external attention. Washington had already obtained a federal judge’s order for state health inspection at this facility in July (2026-07-10–tacoma-geo-group-federal-judge-orders-state-health-inspection), and the renewed court-order effort indicates the access problem persisted. The contested-inspection pattern runs across GEO’s portfolio in parallel: Colorado’s public health order over tuberculosis at Aurora (2026-08-13–cdphe-public-health-order-26-02-geo-aurora-tuberculosis-records), New Jersey’s suit over Delaney Hall inspector access (2026-06-02–nj-sues-geo-group-delaney-hall-health-inspector-access), and McFarland’s arrangement letting GEO self-police (2026-06-12–mcfarland-ca-mou-geo-group-self-polices-ice-detention-facilities). The possible ICE takeover cuts an ambiguous direction — it would remove the contractor whose opacity is at issue, while transferring the facility to the federal agency that has used contractor status to deflect state jurisdiction in the first place. Hunger strikers elsewhere have met force-feeding orders (2026-08-04–ice-obtains-court-orders-force-feed-18-hunger-strikers), which sets the likely terminus if the Tacoma strike holds.