Re: “Washington governor, AG stand by state prison notifications to ICE” (Aug. 22, Local News):
Gov. Bob Ferguson and state Attorney General Brown’s continued support for our state’s facilitation of the deportation of individuals leaving our state prisons is unconscionable and indefensible. It reflects the same racialized attitudes about those we condemn to prison as disposable and beyond repair that, decades ago, turned our prison system into warehouses of exclusion of people of color.
The individuals who face deportation upon leaving our state prisons are humans, too. Those serving long sentences often came to the United States lawfully as children, committed a crime as a young adult and have no ties to anywhere other than here. Deportation for these individuals is the worst possible punishment our state could impose, made worse by the fact that they already served a sentence — often an already excessively long sentence — for their crime. Now, they face deportation to “third countries” where they may be imprisoned indefinitely without charge.
It’s time our state leaders have the courage to break free of depraved tropes about crime and punishment, and stand for a system that upholds the Constitution, our state values and common decency. Lawless, medieval banishment is not that.
Jennie Pasquarella, legal director, Seattle Clemency Project
