Washington State Helped ICE Arrest 76 People So Far This Year

Washington State has helped ICE arrest 76 people just this year thanks to an exemption in the State’s flagship law protecting immigrants. These arrests account for a small percentage of overall ICE arrests this year, but they are arrests directly in the State’s control — custodial arrests that transfer immigrants from state jails to ICE detention centers. And the refusal to amend the law to stop this practice as part of their flashy legislative efforts to stand up to ICE, shows the limits of Washington Democrats’ true commitment to protecting immigrants. 

Last month, several local news outlets and the UW Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) analyzed the latest batch of data from UC Berkeley and UCLA’s Deportation Data Project. As UWCHR put it, the data “confirms what communities have been seeing,” massive upticks in enforcement.

ICE arrested 699 people in Washington in June and then another 688 in July. For comparison, ICE arrested 305 and 270 people in June and July last year, meaning Washingtonians are seeing their friends and family ripped away at double the rate this summer compared to last. 

Arrests surged despite Democrat lawmakers spree of anti-ICE messaging and legislation following President Donald Trump’s re-election. Washingtonians don’t have to look further than the campaign literature incumbents stuffed their mailboxes with to see what Democrats think they did to protect immigrants. 

Mainly, they tout legislation prohibiting law enforcement from hiding their identity with masks (which ICE simply does not comply with). But the State Legislature also passed a law requiring employers to notify workers within 72 hours of receiving a federal Notice of Inspection of its Employment Eligibility Verification Forms I-9 and mild restrictions on ALPR data use and retention. Additionally, localities passed moratoriums on the construction of new detention centers and restrictions on ICE’s ability to stage on public property. 

These new laws have not ended ICE’s terror. To be clear, even their supporters knew they would not. Still, the huge increase in activity runs counter to the stated goals of many Democrats messaging staunchly against ICE in the wake of crackdowns and killings across the country. And maybe some could forgive them for trying and failing — that is, if lawmakers weren’t refusing to eliminate a carveout in the Keep Washington Working (KWW) Act, the simplest way they could directly cut down on ICE arrests. 

In 2019, the Washington State Legislature passed KWW, which prohibits local and State law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. However, the Democrat-controlled State legislature passed KWW with a major exception allowing the Department of Corrections (DOC) to work with ICE to arrest people after their sentence. Advocates often refer to this as the DOC to ICE pipeline. 

According to the Deportation Data Project, ICE has performed 278 “custodial arrests” this year in Washington State, the types of arrests DOC is allowed to facilitate under KWW. ICE no longer specifies if these custodial arrests occur at state or federal prison. DOC told The Burner that the department released 81 incarcerated people with ICE detainers this year. Of those, ICE took 76 directly into custody. That’s outpacing numbers from last year when in late August 2025 the Washington State Standard reported 61 incarcerated people with ICE detainers and 51 pick ups. 

Advocates have been pushing the State government to close this carveout since KWW’s passage. Lawmakers tried to limit DOC’s assistance with ICE in 2023 with Senate Bill 5270. The bill never made it out of committee, a failure some sources blamed on then-Gov. Jay Inslee. 

Some more progressive lawmakers have toyed with the idea of strengthening KWW under a new Governor, but Gov. Bob Ferguson does not seem interested. 

When asked about removing the DOC exemption in KWW in February 2025, Ferguson said, “I will not do that. My direction is that the Department of Corrections continue to lawfully work with federal immigration authorities regarding those individuals,” according to The Washington State Standard. 

Ferguson already faced pressure to revisit the KWW’s DOC to ICE pipeline when President Donald Trump exploited it to arrest Washingtonian Tuan Phan in an experimental “third country” deportation that made international headlines. More than 40 state lawmakers and even more on the local level signed on to a letter calling on Ferguson to pardon Phan, which they believed would allow him to return to his family in Tacoma. The letter also asked Ferguson to work with lawmakers in “resolving” cooperation between DOC and ICE. Not exactly the strongest language and not a clear majority of support from either chamber. Unsurprisingly, the letter did not lead to legislation last session.

Ferguson did not respond to The Burner’s request for comment. 

For now, the State of Washington continues to directly aid in a handful of ICE arrests every month. Until the Democrat-controlled legislature addresses the State’s own complicity, their supposed outrage at Trump’s terror campaign on immigrants amounts to little more than sloganeering.