Lael Henterly

Special for La Raza del Noroeste

May 5 marked the end of 56 days of rolling hunger strikes at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, an effort that at one point drew more than 1,000 participants and international media coverage.

“We are still in the struggle, and although the strike has ended, this isn’t over,” said José Moreno when he heard the strike had ended.

“Abuses that have been happening for years have now come to light.”

One of the original hunger-strike participants and organizers, Moreno played a key role in drawing attention to the alleged abuses occurring at the facility, first on the inside as a detainee, and later on the outside as the voice of the hunger strikers, detailing the experiences inside the privately run detention center.

Detainees at the facility say they were denied proper medical care, fed inadequately and paid $1 per day for “voluntary” labor.

Born in Matamoros Mexico, 25-year-old Moreno grew up directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

“When I was 17 I came to this country. LGBT people are not accepted in my home country, so I decided to come here,” said Moreno, “I moved to Florida, then I came here to Washington State to get my driver’s license.”

Washington is one of three states that issues driver’s licenses to non-citizens. To apply, one must be a Washington resident in the U.S. legally. The license becomes invalid if permission to be in the country lapses.

When Moreno was pulled over while driving in Bothell last October, the status of that license was negated due to a previous arrest for driving under the influence and a resulting immigration detainer issued by the Department of Homeland Security. (Moreno’s blood alcohol level in the original incident was under the legal limit when they tested it at the University of Washington Police Department and he ultimately plead to the lesser charge of reckless driving).

Around the time Moreno was arrested, Maru Mora Villalpando, the founder of Latino Advocacy in Seattle, was getting together with other activists to plan a protest of the 2 million deportations that have occurred since President Obama entered office in 2009.

“We felt our fight, millions and millions of undocumented people’s fight for our dignity was really being hijacked by Congress,” Villalpando said.

After noticing civil-disobedience actions by immigrant rights activist groups across the country, Villalpando decided to try to organize something similar in Washington.

“Last year we came together, had several meetings until finally we had one solid team and we had enough intelligence to do one action outside the detention center. Our aim was to stop a bus.”

The van she and that original group of activists set out to stop was transporting Moreno to Tukwila for a court hearing. Moreno saw the group of people, their arms clenched around pieces of PVC pipe, forming a ten-person human chain, and he heard them chanting, “No están solos.”

At that moment Moreno knew that if he and his fellow detainees did something from the inside, they would have support on the outside. He spoke to his fellow inmates and they planned a hunger strike to begin March 7.

Moreno was released on bond just five days into the original hunger strike and said his fellow detainees asked him to speak on their behalf.

After hearing from the wife of another hunger-striking detainee that Moreno had been released and wanted to help, Villalpando tracked down his phone number and called him at 11 p.m. the night he was released.

“He said, ‘Yes. I saw you guys and I thought if you are doing something for us, we are the ones who have to do something for ourselves. We should not be waiting for anybody else,’” Villalpando recounted, her eyes shining.

“Those were the words I had been waiting to hear for more than 15 years, those were the words I had been telling people in my community–and to hear them from another person– it was like, yes, that was the moment!”

Since then the pair have traveled from Bellingham to Olympia, speaking to groups and participating in actions to shed light on the alleged human-rights abuses occurring at the detention center.

“It changed my life,” Moreno said.

“I feel good, I’ve been doing this for all the people inside: for all the people who don’t want to talk because they are afraid, for all the people who have already been deported, all my friends who are still in there.

“I think we can start change.”