SEATTLE — One man held at the federal government's immigrant detention center in Tacoma was allegedly groped by a guard. Another was allegedly slammed to the floor by officers, then made to strip in front of a female staffer, who recorded a video. Guards allegedly beat a third detained man so badly he had to be moved by stretcher.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Pierce County Superior Court describes these alleged incidents and contends they are part of a pattern of misconduct by officers of the GEO Group. The private, Florida-based company runs the Northwest ICE Processing Center, which holds roughly 1,600 people and is one of the largest detention centers in the country.

Filed on behalf of three men, the lawsuit seeks to hold GEO and two officers liable for monetary damages and accountable for alleged negligence and emotional distress. The 31-page complaint makes sweeping allegations, including falsifying reports to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sham" internal investigations, denying medical care and hiring openly racist guards.

One officer named in the suit carried a mug with a Proud Boys sticker. The far-right group affiliates itself with "Western chauvinism" and its conduct has been described by a judge as "hateful and overtly racist."

The Seattle Times is not naming the officers because they have not been charged with a crime.

The Pierce County lawsuit's three plaintiffs are Black, one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, one from the Bahamas and one from Nigeria.

All three alleged attacks described in the lawsuit happened in 2024, under the Biden administration. The detention center has long been the subject of complaints and criticism by immigrants held there, advocates, human rights groups and local government officials.

In the past year, as the facility's population surged under the Trump administration's immigrant crackdown, conditions have reportedly gotten even worse. Staff have delivered food undercooked and in the middle of the night and people have been denied regular medical care and outdoor access, according to interviews with The Times.

Dozens of people held at the Tacoma facility have also complained of assaults and sexual abuse. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights last year found 157 such reports to the Tacoma Police Department between 2015 and 2025. Detained people were the reported victims in 90% of those cases.

Tacoma police routinely ignored reports or conducted cursory investigations, deferring to GEO and ICE, according to the UW human rights center. The same thing happened in two of the cases described in the lawsuit, according to the complaint.

GEO, ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment. The private company and the federal government have repeatedly defended conditions at the detention center, saying they adhere to rigorous standards.

Responding to the UW report on assault and sexual abuse reports, GEO spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said in a statement last year: “These allegations are part of a long-standing, politically motivated, and radical campaign to abolish ICE and end federal immigration detention by attacking the federal government’s immigration facility contractors. ”

A Tacoma police spokesperson, asked about this week's lawsuit, said the department does not comment on active litigation.

In the first incident described in the lawsuit, a man identified by the initials "R.T." was pulled aside to an area outside the view of a surveillance camera during a housing pod search. The officer repeatedly grabbed the detained man's crotch, according to the lawsuit, which said the groping appeared to be aimed at humiliating R.T.

R.T. repeatedly reported the incident to Tacoma police and sent a letter about it to Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, according to the lawsuit. His lawyer let police know the name of a witness. Yet, the lawsuit says, police never spoke with R.T. or the witness and closed the case when told the officer in question had provided a statement denying sexual touching.

GEO investigated itself and found no wrongdoing. The lawsuit claims the company also wrote a report to ICE falsely claiming the officer in question was unknown and had "inadvertently" touched R.T. in the groin area.

A contraband search on a different day led to a confrontation between Javon Gordon and guards. Gordon, finding his cell ransacked, complained of disrespect. Two officers then tackled him to the ground, slamming his face into the concrete and leaving him bleeding from the mouth and head, according to the complaint.

"I can't breathe," Gordon said.

Officers subsequently cuffed Gordon's legs and knees, at which point one of the guards thrust his knee into Gordon's ribs, the lawsuit says.

"To inflict further humiliation, Defendants stripped Mr. Gordon of his

clothes as a female officer video recorded, and then took the bed, leaving Mr. Gordon with a flimsy suicide suit," the lawsuit says. It goes on: "Placing detainees on suicide watch is a common tactic after assaults by prison and jail staff — any injuries can be blamed on the victim as self-harm."

GEO found Gordon, not the guards, guilty of assault, according to the lawsuit, which claims a hearing officer reversed his initial finding after apparent pressure from higher-ups.

Gordon said he heard from multiple new officers that GEO was showing a video of the alleged violence he experienced to train recruits on behavior they should follow. He also reported the incident to Tacoma police, which failed to investigate, according to the lawsuit.

The third incident described in the lawsuit began when Jeffersonking Anyanwu was told he couldn't access a CD-ROM with legal documents that GEO had taken away, purportedly for safekeeping. Anyanwu, who faced a deadline a couple of weeks away for an appeal of his case, had a barbed verbal exchange with a guard. Later that evening, while he was watching TV, an officer told him to step outside his pod.

"You got yourself in trouble, boy," the guard allegedly said. Anyanwu responded he was not the guard's "boy," the lawsuit said.

Guards smashed his head and jaw to the floor, according to the lawsuit. They cut his breathing off and repeatedly struck him in the testicles. "Don't kill me, Anyanwu said.

He was carried away by a stretcher. For a month, he had trouble lifting an arm. He received ibuprofen and a steroid shot but no X-ray, according to the lawsuit.

As in Gordon's case, Anyanwu faced administrative charges, which were dismissed. The officers, according to the lawsuit, faced no consequences.

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