Abolish ICE? Reform it? Or what?

One of the country’s largest immigrant detention centers blends into a bland industrial landscape on the tide flats of the Port of Tacoma. The warehouses and storage hangars of metal, plastics, and recycling companies surround the facility’s long, low buildings, where on any given day the United States federal government houses almost 1,600 men and women.

Only the presence of a protest camp outside the Northwest Detention Center disrupts the gray tableau, exposing an enterprise distinct in its function and political dimensions. Activists first showed up in June in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) separating more than 2,500 children from their parents at the US-Mexico border under President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on illegal crossings.

An “Occupy ICE” camp with tents and canopies soon sprouted on a block-long strip of matted yellow grass near the center’s front gate. Protesters hung handmade

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