Earlier this month Wired published the addresses of dozens of potential ICE field offices which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is looking to open as part of its escalating campaign of terror against immigrants. On that list was the Riverfront Technical Park in Tukwila, WA, a small municipality south of Seattle known for its high concentration of East African immigrants. Riverfront Technical Park is conveniently situated between an ICE/DHS field office already in operation at 12500 Tukwila International Boulevard and the King County International Airport (commonly referred to as Boeing Field) out of which ICE charters deportation flights.
News of ICE’s attempt to expand its footprint in Tukwila has already triggered a flurry of aimless protest and hollow political gestures. On 2/25/26, dozens of protesters gathered outside the offices of Sabey Corporation, the real estate and data center developer which owns both the Riverfront Technical Park and the already-operating DHS field office at 12500 Tukwila International Boulevard. The latter was the site of a contentious stand-off between ICE pigs and protesters last summer after ICE attempted to illegally detain several immigrants over Father’s Day weekend. That day saw protesters bravely block exits to and from the building to prevent those detained from being taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. After 30 ICE and Tukwila PD pigs arrived on the scene in riot gear, they managed to disperse the crowd with chemical agents and other munitions before escaping with the kidnapped fathers.
The 2/25/26 demonstration outside Sabey’s corporate offices was a decidedly less militant affair organized by a “powerhouse coalition” of goofy liberals who explicitly instructed participants to remain “peaceful, lawful, [and] non-violent” and to “FOLLOW EVERYTHING THE BRIGHT-VESTED SAFETY TEAM INSTRUCTS.” The crowd congregated on the sidewalk, faced out toward the street, and banged on some drums. No attempt was made to even step foot on the property nor to enter the building to demand Sabey terminate the lease. An organizer of the protest, Josh Castle of Southend Indivisible, told the Seattle Times, “What we’re experiencing in our country is something we’ve never seen before, where there is a campaign to rid our country of people of color, immigrants and refugees.” This is simply untrue. Anyone remotely familiar with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the ceaseless waves of violent anti-immigrant hysteria which followed it—not to mention the brutalization of Black people by the police every damn day—should know that Castle’s ahistorical comments are a lie.
Also in attendance at the rally was Tukwila City Council President Armen Papyan who claimed to be seeking ways to address concerns through methods which are “legally possible.” This comes after the Tukwila City Council voted on 2/23/26 to adopt a temporary moratorium on any new detention facilities–a purely symbolic move given that the lease will be for an administrative field office. City officials have claimed that, while they “value the diversity that strengthens our city,” they have no power to regulate the lease agreements of private property owners. It’s a strange position to take given that there is a “legally possible” solution which the Tukwila City Council has exercised in the past at the expense of immigrant communities: eminent domain, the legal process by which a municipal body may seize private property for public use.
Displacing immigrants to make room for the pigs
In 2017, just months after Trump’s anti-immigrant “Muslim Ban” had taken effect, the Tukwila City Council voted unanimously to seize through eminent domain a plot of land on which 16 different immigrant-owned businesses rented storefronts. The purpose of the seizure was to acquire land on which to expand court and police facilities. The City of Tukwila was legally obligated to compensate the owners of the land, but, as city officials repeated ad nauseam throughout the process, they were under no such obligation to the business owners who effectively faced eviction.
The complex of predominantly East African-owned businesses was much more than a shopping mall. The grocery stores, hair salons, restaurants, travel agency, used-car dealership, and other specialty-goods shops offered culturally-specific products and services while functioning as a gathering place for different immigrant communities. As Real Change News put it in one of several heart-wrenching profiles written at the time,
If these businesses go, so do most of the residents. This site is not just one where people come to buy their food and leave, but one where they live their everyday lives, build relationships and find a makeshift home in a new place… It is where retired immigrant men and women…travel to every day. They go to the nearby Islamic Center of Seattle and walk to the nearby business center, staying often until 8 p.m., talking about what’s happening back home over a cup of tea and a Sambusa. Without this community center, the inevitability of depression rests heavy on [the business owners’] minds.
Despite significant pushback from the business owners and a coalition of sympathetic groups, the city moved forward with their plans and by 2019 all the businesses had either shuttered or signed settlements with the city and relocated.
Build the mass movement against ICE terror!
Fast forward to 2026 and the urgent need for expanding “public safety” cited by the Tukwila City Council as justification for destroying an immigrant community institution a decade earlier has all but vanished. It’s our responsibility to reignite that sense of urgency and light a fire under the asses of city council to seize the Sabey properties through eminent domain and evict ICE. We need to channel our outrage into a genuine mass movement and set our sights on nothing less than the destruction of the mass deportation machine.
But we can only do this by bringing forward the masses of immigrants who have suffered the consequences of displacement and ICE terror into bold confrontation with both Sabey Corporation as well as the Tukwila City Council. Parades and drum circles that keep to the sidewalk and fail to disrupt business as usual will never compel real estate capitalists to “do the right thing.” Politely asking politicians to consider taking actions in opposition to their class interests will likewise never see results. That’s why we’re not asking, we’re demanding:
- Seize the DHS facilities and evict ICE
- Freedom for the kidnapped
- Stop the deportations
- Jail killer ICE agents
- End repression against ICE protesters
As part of Dare to Struggle’s national Spring Surge to Melt ICE campaign, DtS Seattle will be holding a Speak Out at the Tukwila International Boulevard Transit Center at 1pm on Sat 3/21 where we’ll speak our bitterness toward this vicious system and make our demands heard. In the lead-up to the Speak Out on 3/21, we’ll be holding mass meetings and going on outings to immigrant neighborhoods and high schools to connect with the masses about standing up against ICE terror. And for the youth who participated in last month’s defiant school walk-outs, we urge you to take up the call for a week of action beginning 3/16 as students across the country demand ¡Libertad para los Secuestrados!
If you’re in the Seattle/King County area, reach out to daretostruggleseattle@proton.me or DM us on instagram @daretostruggleseattle to learn more about how to tap into the Spring Surge to Melt ICE. If you’re ready to step out of despair and into the streets, join us in building a mass movement capable of smashing the deportation machine once and for all.
¡CHINGA LA MIGRA!
¡NO TENEMOS MIDEO!
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Further Reading:
City of Tukwila, “Implementing Tukwila’s Public Safety Plan”
Puget Sound Sage: “Why Immigrant and Refugee Businesses Are Being Displaced in Tukwila, and What We Can Do About It”
Dare to Struggle 