Inside ICE Detention in Tacoma

The immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, is one of the largest detention centers in the country. This prison-like facility has rapidly filled to capacity as a new era of ICE enforcement gains steam and brings profound changes for people locked inside detention — many of whom are longtime residents of Oregon and Washington.

Today, we bring you a documentary from our partners at KUOW Public Radio in Seattle called “Inside ICE Detention” which opens a window into this time of transition under the Trump Administration. It looks into who is getting detained, how they are treated, and some new pressures people are facing as they try to fight deportation.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB, I’m Dave Miller. We’re going to listen to a documentary today about the immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington, a place often outside the public eye. This prison-like facility rapidly filled to capacity this year as a new era of ICE enforcement gained steam, and it’s brought new challenges for people being detained as they try to access lawyers, get medical care, or get released. Many of these people are longtime residents of Washington and Oregon.

The documentary, called “Inside ICE Detention,” comes to us from Liz Jones and our partners at KUOW Public Radio in Seattle. It takes us on a journey alongside a woman who landed in detention after a workplace raid as she tries to navigate a way out.

Liz Jones: Four days before her wedding, Espinoza started her morning shift as usual. She clocked in at the factory where she’d worked for 20 years. Her job was to supervise a team that fixes the machinery. She’s good at fixing things. A video captures how her last day there ended.

An immigration attorney stands in the parking lot recording on his phone. Wind whips against the microphone. The image is fixed on a white bus next to a loading dock. The door opens and three agents in flak jackets and face masks begin to walk people out.

They start with the men, nine of them. The first two look young, maybe 20. Their heads hang low, shoulders hunched forward, their wrists and ankles chained in shackles. You can hear the lawyer and another woman shouting to them, “Don’t sign anything.” “Get a lawyer.” “We’re with you.” Some of the men look over before they step onto the bus. Then the warehouse door opens again. This time it’s the women, seven of them, also in wrist and ankle chains. Two are bent over at the waist as they walk, almost leaning into each other.

Immigration officials sent out a press release later that day about this workplace raid. It happened at Eagle Beverage. It’s a beverage bottling company about a half hour south of Seattle. The agents came in with a search warrant for people who appeared to have fake work papers. They made 17 arrests, but the video is missing one person. That’s because Espinoza was the first person agents got to on the other side of the building. She’d just stepped outside on a break when she saw the place was surrounded.

This is a story of what happens after the raid, after someone is arrested, what happens to Espinoza and others who land in immigration detention and whether they can find a way to stay here.

Voters elected President Trump partly for his promise to crack down on illegal immigration, and leaders in his administration, like Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, often reiterate the priority is to detain and deport violent criminals:

Kristi Noem: We’re prioritizing those who have committed crimes and aliens who are a threat to public safety and national security.

Jones: Detention centers are filling to capacity, but mostly with people who have no criminal history. And plans are now underway to nearly double detention beds in the next few years. Here’s White House border czar Tom Homan:

Tom Homan: Look, we just passed a Big Beautiful Bill. We need more beds. We’re looking to get 100,000 beds, and the more beds we get, the more bad guys we can take off the street.

Jones: Inside detention, the rules are shifting for the advocates and immigration attorneys who try to fight against deportation.

Xiomara Urán: The speed at which we’re seeing the changes now, it’s insane. They’ve gone so fast.

Jones: And people in detention can feel like the walls are closing in.

Tricia Humphrey’s relative: You have to hurry because people are really dying inside. It’s so bad.

Jones: As immigration enforcement reaches a massive new scale, we open a window into the detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and the questions that swirl in and outside its walls about who is really getting locked up, how they’re being treated, and if their time in the United States is almost over.

Something to know about Espinoza is that she’s a fairly private person, but she wanted to tell her story because so many people are in a similar situation. We agreed to only use her last name. We started to talk soon after she was locked up in the Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma. The phone lines are terrible. I asked her how she was sleeping. “Really bad,” she says. “I wake up really early, at three in the morning because there’s so much noise here.” Her dorm room is next to the cafeteria, and she hears the cleaning crew at night and heavy doors open and close. Keys jangling. We talk about her health and day-to-day life there. “I’m sleeping more during the day,” she says, “because I’m woken up so early. I’ll get some breakfast, then wait to get my medications, and they’ll call everyone back for a head count.”

A lot of the daily schedule revolves around when guards need to move them places for meals, for medication, or to court. Sometimes meals are hours late. “At meals, it’s a lot of potatoes and bread,” she says. Today they had eggs for breakfast. “They have the air a little cold here,” she says, “and I have a bad knee, so I feel some pain and aches in my bones, at night too.”

Espinoza is originally from a small town in Sinaloa, Mexico. She’s 52 and came to Seattle 20 years ago on a tourist visa to visit her brother, and she just stayed. She got the job at Eagle Beverage, and she met a woman she was about to marry. They’ve been together 12 years, and Espinoza’s become a second mom to her son. She says she also stayed in the U.S. because almost immediately she felt safe here in a way she never had before. She’s gay and says she faced discrimination all her life in Sinaloa, a place known for violence and cartel activity.

At one point, shouting erupts in the background. The women in her unit are celebrating because someone just came back from a court hearing and she was granted bond. That means she’ll get released and continue fighting her case on the outside. The women who’ve been in detention for months tell Espinoza that’s rare, that nobody gets bond. Nobody wins their case, and most people get deported. Espinoza started to sink into despair. She says, “It’s causing me some anxiety, some hopelessness.” We talk for about 40 minutes. Then one of the guards calls her away.

Judge John O’Dell: Good morning. It’s Immigration Judge John O’Dell in the immigration court Tacoma, Washington.

Jones: This is a recording of Espinoza’s first hearing. It’s inside a courtroom at the detention center about a week after she arrived. She wears a yellow uniform, her hair cropped short with flecks of silver at the front. She has broad shoulders, a sturdy build.

Judge O’Dell: Good morning. If I call your name, please stand and remain standing. You will be part of the group.

Jones: It’s a group hearing with five people, where a judge gives a quick overview of how their cases will be heard, and I want to slow down here, because court is perhaps the most defining experience of detention. Lives are decided in hearings that can last just a few minutes, and the backdrop here is stark. This ICE detention center in Tacoma is one of the largest in the country.

When Espinoza arrives, the population inside is growing at a rate not seen in years, and will more than double during Trump’s first six months in office. Pressures build as the living units and courtrooms become more crowded, and that pressure hangs in the air, like a summer heat wave.

Judge O’Dell: I will first address you as a group to explain your rights in these proceedings. I will then speak to you individually to discuss the facts of your case. The purpose of these proceedings is to first determine whether or not you can be removed from the United States.

Jones: At this first hearing, the judge will ask them if they plan to pursue any legal option to stay here, like asylum, or maybe they have a path to a green card. This will buy them some time to get a lawyer and see if they have a way to fight deportation.

Judge O’Dell: Each of you should have received a copy of your notice to appear.

Jones: One by one, three men in Espinoza’s group make a choice to give up and just get out of detention. None of them have lawyers.

Detainee [speaking through interpreter]: What I want is I’m waiving all of my rights and I want to, what I need is to return to my country, so what I want is voluntary departure.

Judge O’Dell: All right, sir, I have some questions I have to ask you first, so be patient.

Jones: In these three cases, the men ask for voluntary departure. It’s a way to avoid a deportation on your record, but you also have to pay for the flight yourself. O’Dell asks each person which country they want to return to.

Detainee 1: Nicaragua.

Judge O’Dell: Nicaragua.

Detainee 2: Mexico.

Judge O’Dell: Mexico.

Detainee 3: Honduras?

Judge O’Dell: Honduras, yes.

Jones: Judge O’Dell grants two of the voluntary departures. The other will be a deportation. Each case takes about 5 minutes. The oldest guy in the group is 48, and he’s been here the longest, about 20 years. He tells the judge his partner is here, although they’re not married. He seems to waver, as O’Dell reviews his departure deadline and his option to appeal today’s decision.

Detainee [speaking through interpreter]: But can I maintain that still until the 23rd? Like, for example, if there’s a change of mind...well, for my part.

Judge O’Dell: Sir, you wanted the voluntary departure. I’m giving that to you. OK, is that, is that what you want? OK, yes or no. Is that what you want?

Detainee [speaking through interpreter]: Yes.

Judge O’Dell: All right, good luck to you and safe travels back to your home.

Detainee [speaking through interpreter]: Thank you.

Jones: Now for Espinoza’s turn and the choice she’ll make.

Judge O’Dell: Did you understand all the rights I explained to everyone this morning?

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: Yes.

Judge O’Dell: Do you want more time to try to find a lawyer or to prepare your case?

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: I am looking for an attorney.

Jones: O’Dell gives her a date to come back in about three weeks. Only about 14% of people in detention can find or afford an attorney, and those who do are ten times more likely to win their case, according to government data. For Espinoza, there will be several more court dates ahead, each one forcing her to new decisions.

There used to be more legal help for immigrants in detention. Federal grants paid for regular workshops where classrooms full of detainees would learn how to navigate the court system. But the Trump administration cut that money, so people are fully on their own unless they find a lawyer. Xiomara Urán is an immigration attorney who used to help with these workshops in Tacoma. We talked about it while walking around a park nearby.

Urán: So before, for instance, with the legal orientation program, they would reserve three rooms for us to conduct our services. Now they don’t.

Jones: Urán is with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a main group offering free legal help to detainees. With the detention center filling up and the workshops gone, she says it’s become a wild card system to get legal aid to people, and attorneys fight for time and space to meet with detainees one by one, day after day.

Urán: So we’ve had to strategize on how to go about it, but if you go at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. you’re probably gonna wait between three and five hours before you can see anyone. And so this past month I’ve been there at 6:50 in the morning just to secure the ability of seeing my people in the morning, without spending hours and hours just waiting.

Jones: Another attorney said by email in August, “This has now become the norm. The best bet is to block off a full day to wait and see a client.” Urán says ICE officers inside can also drive a wedge between detainees and their attorneys by filling detainees with doubt.

Urán: They’ve told people that we have disappeared and that what’s the point of fighting because there’s no one to fight for you, so just ask for your removal, you know, or self-deport now.

Jones: Urán has taken up Espinoza’s case and encouraged her to fight. Three weeks after Espinoza’s first hearing, the next one is again with Judge John O’Dell. It lasts two minutes. She tells him she does have an attorney, but they need more time to prepare her case.

Judge O’Dell: All right, this is the last time I will continue your case for an attorney. You come back next time without an attorney, we’re going to go forward without one.

Jones: He sets the next date in two weeks.

The Tacoma Detention Center first opened in 2004, and protests followed. A central issue is just the existence of this prison-like facility. At last check, 70% of people in detention nationwide have no criminal record. A private contractor called GEO Group operates the facility through a contract with ICE. Both GEO and ICE declined interviews for this story. Protests ignited again this year as ICE ramped up arrests and more families, workers, advocates and politicians spoke out. They create a whole ecosystem around the detention center. Over the summer, I met several families trying to figure out the opaque rules of detention, some who didn’t know for days where their relative was taken or why, or how to help them get out.

Tricia Humphrey: My name’s Tricia Humphrey and I’m from Minnesota, actually. My relative that is being detained here at the facility is actually from California. She has a visa. She has a Real ID, a SSN, working, paying taxes, and she just went out to her car one Saturday morning to go put something in her car, and she was approached by three men, unidentified, started asking her questions, and zip tied her and put her in a van and took her away. And the only reason the family knew this happened is because there’s security cameras outside of the home. And so they suspected it was ICE, but again, they wouldn’t tell her why they took her at first. I mean, don’t they have to? I mean, or is ICE playing by a totally different set of rules?

Jones: She didn’t want to share the name of her relative, but I saw her inside the courtroom that day, sitting next to Espinoza, both in yellow uniforms. The judge reviewed that she had a pending asylum application, a work visa, a job in a California school district. He commented that she makes a good salary. The government is claiming her visa expired, but her lawyer and family say it’s valid through 2029.

Humphrey: They keep saying, “It’s not a jail. It’s not a jail, it’s a detention center.” However, when I went to go visit her, it’s like talking through glass on a phone. I didn’t get to hug her. I couldn’t, so I mean… it’s jail.

Jones: Tricia says she wonders who’s benefiting from this whole operation, the immigration jails, the planes they use to transfer people.

Humphrey: They took her on a private jet with two ICE officers to take her to another state. How much did that cost?

Jones: Was she the only one?

Humphrey: She was the only one on the plane, and she’s heard that from other people here too, that they were the only ones. So I, to me, follow the money. Who’s… where’s our tax dollars going?

Jones: We talk near the gates where ICE transport vehicles come and go. A few vans pull in with detainees inside, and ICE escorts a couple of people out who are getting released. One is a man from Kenya who won his asylum case. Another is a man who’s a legal permanent resident with a green card, and his relative, waiting for him, also doesn’t know why he got picked up.

This administration has stepped up enforcement of green card holders who have a criminal history, even if it’s decades old. Technically, the government has discretion to try to deport people in these cases, but it’s a shift to see agents pursuing these longtime residents, detaining them at airports and border crossings.

Humphrey: I’m embarrassed, I’m going to say, that I didn’t know that this was happening, right? You know, because it wasn’t happening to me, I didn’t feel it. And so when you kind of take a step back, you’re like, what else is happening? Because so much is changing so fast.

Jones: Eventually the guards escort her relative out of the jail and open the chain link fence for her to walk out. She’s wearing corduroy shorts with embroidered green flowers, her hair in tight braids, and she just collapses with emotion about all the people still inside.

Tricia’s Humphrey’s relative: You have to hurry because people are really dying inside. It’s so bad. It’s the… the worst is… you know, yesterday I told them when I called, if I don’t call you, it means I’m… I don’t know where. I don’t trust them. They’re so scary.

Jones: They rush off to Tricia’s car to see if they can make a flight home tonight to California. Espinoza passed the weeks in detention often looking for quiet and small ways to cope. She’d call home every day to talk with her partner and her teenage son. They’d come to visit on evenings and weekends when her partner had a break from work. Sometimes she’d watch TV with the other women. Sometimes she’d talk with her former coworkers who were also detained with her after the raid. Sometimes she’d play basketball by herself in a small outdoor area just for a break from the noise and crowd.

The women who’d been there longer would talk about everything running slower because there wasn’t enough staff. They could go days with no outdoor time. She says her connection to family and friends kept her going. And also knowing that she had a lawyer on the outside, fighting for her. Espinoza had something else going for her – plans to get married to her long-term partner, who’s also a U.S. citizen. They had the rings, the marriage license, everything set. Then that raid happened at Eagle Beverage, four days before the ceremony. She spent what was supposed to be her wedding day in detention. Her attorney, Xiomara had an idea.

What if they got married anyway, in detention? Having a U.S. citizen spouse could give her a legal path to stay, but it’s not a slam dunk, and making a marriage happen in detention involves some red tape. They filed the paperwork with ICE and they waited, as the days counted down to Espinoza’s next court date.

Tough conditions inside detention can also push people to give up their legal fight. Around the country, Congress members have stepped up visits to ICE detention centers and called for more transparency, especially as places hit capacity. The Tacoma facility is in Rep. Emily Randall’s district, and I met her outside after her third visit this year. She worries about staffing shortages and how it’s affecting detainees.

Rep. Emily RandalI: They have a number of staff openings that are unfilled that give me concern, lots of folks who have said that they’re unable to get outside, given the number of shifts for outdoor recreation.

Jones: Healthcare is another big issue – for access to medication, chronic issues or injuries. Espinoza has stage 4 kidney disease. Randall gave credit to the medical staff inside trying to provide care, but detainees also tell her about long delays.

Rep. Randall: A lot of folks are just deciding not to keep showing up. Not to keep trying, not to even file complaints for a lack of access to care, and that demoralization, I think it can have really negative outcomes for individuals, for their physical health, for their mental health. And we’re seeing more and more people who are signing to self-deport because they don’t have any fight left in them.

Jones: Randall is also a member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, and said she plans to keep up these visits because it’s important for the staff and detainees to know Congress is watching.

Rep. Randall: There are individuals in our caucus who have been denied access to many facilities around the country and who, as individuals, have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration and ICE denying them access.

Jones: GEO Group has long maintained that it follows national detention standards and is committed to providing the highest quality services possible.

We talk next to train tracks just outside the front gate. The location here can feel out of the way in this industrial corner of the port, but many ICE detention centers are far more remote, sometimes hundreds of miles from a major city and support networks.

As you walk along the tall chain link fence that rings the facility, you come to a vigil with flowers, candles, and posters. A banner remembers two men who died inside the detention center in 2024. Rufina Reyes leads the advocacy group behind this vigil and behind more than a decade of documenting detainee experiences here.

Rufina Reyes: We try to take maybe, you know, 100 calls a day, but…

Jones: From the detention center, 100 calls a day?

Reyes: Yes, and so many of them we can’t take because when we are talking with one person and another call is coming and we can’t respond at the same time.

Jones: The calls come in on three separate lines. Her group’s called La Resistencia – the resistance – and they’ve spent years tracking some of these same complaints about living conditions and access to healthcare. They’ve also hit barriers trying to stay in contact with people inside.

Reyes: When GEO Group, they know they are talking with us, they cut the lines, they put solitary confinement to these people, and that’s retaliations.

Jones: Sometimes people who talk with them get transferred to another state, and then others will decide it’s not worth the risk and go silent.

On any given day, so many lives cross paths outside the detention center, and you see people sharing information and stories. One Saturday, a church group gathered to pray outside the front entrance. A group leader tells me they just finished a ministry with the women – Espinoza’s unit. On this day, I also meet a nun who drives three hours from rural eastern Washington to visit people from her community.

Sister Mary Ellen Robinson: I’m Sister Mary Ellen Robinson. I’m a Catholic sister, and I’m here to visit a young man who was detained when he reported for a required legal making his presence known. He’s a young man who’s here seeking asylum. He’s part of a large family that needed to leave Mexico because their lives were in danger. And his family are very worried about him and they are totally afraid to come anywhere near here.

Jones: She’s holding a paper with the visitation schedule marked in yellow highlighter. It’s a detailed system of odd and even days for each unit, and the schedule on ICE’s website is different from the paper version at the check-in desk.

Robinson: I came thinking that the visiting time was from 10:00 to noon, and it wasn’t. It was from 7:30 to 10:00 and now I have to wait till noon to get in.

Jones: The days count down to Espinoza’s next court date, the one where the judge said they need to move forward. Her attorney knew the marriage would make Espinoza’s case stronger, but they were running out of time to make it happen. Finally, ten days before Espinoza’s court date, they got the approval. Espinoza’s fiancée arrived at the detention center that Saturday morning wearing a white pantsuit, her long brown hair down past her shoulders.

G: For my wedding day, I was, I imagined it like being with my friends, with family of people that love us.

Jones: We’re only using her first initial – G – since they’re worried about saying anything that could affect Espinoza’s immigration case. She met their lawyer, Xiomara, outside the front gate, and they walked in together along with G’s teenage son, Espinoza’s brother and nephew, and a family friend, all U.S. citizens who showed their IDs as they got checked into the facility. ICE did not respond to my request to attend the ceremony, so G and I talked outside after it was over, and she did her best to keep up a smile.

G: I have two emotions, like feeling excited because it was a special day for us, but also sad because it wasn’t in the place that we wanted or the way we wanted.

Jones: She says Espinoza seemed in good spirits.

G: Just to be able to hug each other, that’s the moment that my heart was like, ahh! Because it was emotional… and…

Jones: The brides always cry on their wedding day, right?

G: Yes, yes.

Jones: These are tears for different reasons.

G: Yes, so we are hopeful, and I saw her like, more relaxed in that sense, because she, for many weeks there were times that she was like, very scared, was very stressed and the… depression, is that the word?

Jones: Depressed?

G: Depressed, yeah.

Jones: After they exchanged rings, the officiant asked if they wanted to share personal vows. It caught them both off guard. They didn’t think they’d have a chance to speak here.

G: Yeah, like I said, we were very nervous.

Jones: What did you say? Do you remember?

G: I don’t know, I forgot. I mention something about like, this is like a test for us, but if we are going through this, we are able to, in the future we can accomplish many other things. So I know that after this we’re gonna keep always be together and keep going.

Jones: Espinoza’s attorney Xiomara seems hopeful this marriage will give her a better chance at bond, to get out and continue her case outside of detention.

Xiomara: Now things are very strong. In other words, I can never say that things are going to be smooth, because immigration court is always difficult, particularly in the detainees setting. And so the plan is now to get her out through bond.

Jones: But bond is just one step toward freedom, because even if Espinoza gets out, she’ll still have to fight to remain in the U.S. And there’s a higher bar to prove it’s a bona fide marriage when one spouse is in deportation proceedings. Xiomara has started to gather documents and family photos going back more than a decade, all three in Christmas sweaters, celebrating birthdays or school graduations. That will all be needed down the road.

The day arrives for Espinoza’s next court hearing. This is when the government presents charges against someone, like they entered the country without permission, or overstayed a visa.

At this point, the person will tell the court what application they plan to file to try to stay in the U.S. Asylum applications are really common. After that, they’ll get an individual hearing where the judge will rule on the merits of their case. People are rarely deported at this initial step, but it’s possible if someone misses their hearing or the judge determines they have no legal claim available.

As we heard in the previous group hearing, some people at this stage ask for voluntary departure to return to their home country. And sitting in court some days, some people without attorneys seem confused about their options. One day, I watched a man from Cuba ask for voluntary departure, then change his mind and say he’d try an asylum application. Then later a man from Guatemala asks about asylum, but when the judge asks if he’s afraid to return to his home country, the man says, “No.” An interpreter on the video screen grimaces, “Well then, you’re not eligible for asylum,” the judge tells him, then gives the man an order for voluntary departure. It can all go so fast.

Judge O’Dell: Well, we’re going to go forward in your case without an attorney.

Jones: Espinoza’s attorney is not in court today because they expect this hearing to be pretty straightforward. Judge O’Dell starts with the government’s charge that Espinoza overstayed her visa.

Judge: Did you remain in the United States beyond that date without the authorization of the Department of Homeland Security?

Espinoza: Sí.

Interpreter: Yes.

Judge O’Dell: I sustain the charge.

Jones: Next, he reviews the application Espinoza plans to file to avoid deportation. She has a few options, and O’Dell is candid about how the government recently jacked up the filing fees on this paperwork.

Judge O’Dell: On July 4th, the law changed. The fee was increased, and I believe it was changed such that I cannot grant a fee waiver anymore.

Jones: Some application fees recently increased from $100 to $1,500 or more. The judge then keys in on a file in her case, showing that Espinoza’s new wife has applied to sponsor her for a green card.

Judge O’Dell: Are you married?

Espinoza: Sí.

Interpreter: Yes.

Judge O’Dell: Well, that’s the best thing you can do. Are you still in a relationship with your spouse?

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: Yes, with my wife.

Judge O’Dell: OK, well, that’s something you really want to look into because she’s filed a petition for you. You were admitted to the United States, so you can get your green card in the United States through your wife. There’s some hefty fees for that now, too.

Jones: That paperwork will all get sorted out later. For now, the bigger deal in Espinoza’s case is her bond hearing to see if she can get out of detention. That’s set for tomorrow, also with Judge O’Dell.

Judge O’Dell: We’ll talk about your bond tomorrow, OK?

Jones: Next day, Espinoza is back in court along with her attorney. Bond hearings are not recorded, but I watched in the courtroom with Espinoza’s wife, G, and several relatives who came for support. Espinoza is already seated facing the judge when a guard escorts us in. She’s wearing her yellow uniform with a sweatshirt layered underneath. Her relatives fill two wood benches behind her. They all seem to avoid each other’s eye contact, to hold off their emotions.

In the past few years, Tacoma has become known as one of the strictest immigration courts in the country for bond approvals. Judges here have taken a controversial direction with bond hearings and begun ruling out a whole class of people once eligible for bond, and their decision hinges on whether someone entered the country with permission. So someone who overstayed a visa is eligible for bond, they’ve said, but someone who crossed the border without permission is not. This debate is a subject of ongoing lawsuits.

Espinoza and her family sit silently looking stressed as the judge prepares his decision. Espinoza’s niece and sister-in-law hold hands, and G draws her son in close at her side. For this family, now torn apart nearly eight weeks, the pressure has built to this moment.

Then in an instant, it lifts away. Judge O’Dell grants Espinoza bond. It will cost her $3,500, it’s on the low end. She turns to her family as she leaves court and pushes a tear off her cheek. Now her family will race to get the bond paid before the ICE office here closes today. So Espinoza will not have to spend another night in detention.

Espinoza was lucky to even get a bond hearing. This summer, the Trump administration made a major policy shift, calling for mandatory detention for far more people, including longtime residents with no criminal history, people who would have likely been released on bond before. ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons explained to Fox News the change aims to rein in a “catch and release” system.

Todd Lyons: And we saw so many people that were apprehended illegally coming through the border and then using the bond system just to go ahead and be released out into the community to have a court date in, you know, 2037, 2035 and never show up for court.

Jones: Espinoza’s family waits outside the detention gates through the afternoon, eager for her release. They have a home cooked meal ready for her.

G: I wanna cry, but I just hold, hold it up.

Jones: Hold it together...

G: Hold it together, yeah. So many people have helped us, support us, and I believe in God, so I believe that everybody that was here to help us, it was put by God. To be together again it’s like a dream, really like a dream, like I’m waking up from a nightmare.

Jones: I asked how she feels about the overall case ahead, to petition for Espinoza’s green card.

G: Hopefully we get a judge that is fair and compassionate but yeah, I’m nervous, very nervous. But just having her next to me it’s gonna do… it’s gonna be more easy… everything it’s gonna be more easy, I hope so.

Jones: What are you thinking, what’s making you emotional right now?

G: That it was really… mentally it was really hard, this month, and sometimes I felt like I couldn’t keep doing it, like, doing by myself, I couldn’t. I felt like I was doing everything wrong. Like I was not doing, I don’t know, like enough. A few times I got like, what it’s called… ataque de pánico…

Jones: Yeah, a panic attack…

G: Panic attacks. There was times that I thought, oh, my heart, I’m gonna get like, you know, like, physically ill.

Jones: The sun falls toward evening. ICE usually releases people by 5:00, but we’re still waiting close to 7:00. Then finally, Espinoza calls. She’ll be in one more night.

G: Bye. Te quiero, bye bye.

Jones: She had a welcome party here tonight. The next day when she’s released, she’ll end up waiting on the curb outside, because nobody told her family when she’d get out. Her freedom comes with one more unexpected weight on her, an ankle monitor.

Her attorney, Xiomara Urán is livid, because the judge explicitly gave her bond with “no conditions.” That includes no ankle monitor. It’ll take a few weeks for Xiomara to figure out. This is another new ICE policy, to expand the use of ankle monitors on people with pending immigration cases. Xiomara says when she appealed the monitor to Judge O’Dell, he lowered the bond.

As an attorney, Xiomara Urán watches these more restrictive policy changes build on each other: the access to attorneys, to bonds, detainees transferred far from home, and she sees it all leading to a much tougher fight for anyone who wants to stay here.

Urán: If I say that somebody doesn’t have much of a case, I don’t think it makes sense to give them a false sense of hope and keep them there detained. And then, for the people who actually have a fight. I ask them to, at certain times, to be patient, which is not easy for me to say when I’m not there.

Jones: After 52 days in detention, at last, Espinoza is back home with her wife and teenage son, and we got a chance to talk in person, with an interpreter. She talks about the simple things they like to do as a family, the things she missed.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: We like to go to the movies. We like to go walking. We like to go walking through parks. We like to go out just like regular people. We like to go to the mall. We like to go out and eat. It’s difficult for me to think about starting over. We’re together, the three of us, always.

Jones: She’s sleeping better, but initially with a lot of disruptions due to the ankle monitor.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: They’ll call me at 2 a.m., at 1 a.m., at 12:00, at 4:00, almost every day.

Jones: The calls would wake her in the middle of the night, asking for her location. “I’m in bed sleeping,” she’d tell them. In public she’d keep it hidden.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: I feel like, what did I do? I usually like to wear shorts in summer, but I don’t feel like it right now.

Jones: I ask a somewhat indelicate question, about why, in all their years together, they didn’t get married sooner to protect her. Protection was never part of the conversation, she says.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: I think they have to do it for love, not just for convenience. I think a marriage is a serious thing. It’s not just a piece of paper, and that’s it.

Jones: Espinoza’s main concerns are for her family, her health, and her work. She lost her healthcare when she lost her job, and she may be eligible for a work permit while her case is pending, but that can take months. She wants to work, to help pay rent and bills and legal fees. Plus, she enjoyed her two decades at Eagle Beverage. Her job there was to fix broken machines, and she sees something broken with the way ICE is targeting workers.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: All people are doing are working, so people are doing it to support themselves. They’re not depending on the government or any other means of support.

Jones: Sixteen people were arrested with Espinoza during that ICE raid in May. She doesn’t know what happened to most of them, if some got deported or left the country voluntarily or are fighting to stay, like she is. Looking back, she says the time in detention left a mark.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: I think the most difficult thing for me, and for really everybody, was the feeling of being locked up without any communication.

Jones: She came out feeling like a different person.

Espinoza [speaking through interpreter]: I think very much so, more than anything mentally. Because basically in reality… everything happened that I didn’t want to have happen to me.

Jones: Espinoza seems a little surprised by her own emotion. She’s private, reserved. She likes to be a steady anchor for her family. A picture frame hangs in their dining room where we sit. It simply reads, “Family Forever.”

Nationwide, immigration detention is reaching record highs, with an average of roughly 60,000 people held each day. The massive bill President Trump signed in July quadruples the funding for detention to keep expanding in the years ahead. White House officials call it a once in a generation opportunity. For KUOW News, I’m Liz Jones reporting.

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