Filipino migrants—including green card holders with serious medical conditions—are suffering inside Tacoma’s Northwest Ice Processing Center
nwasianweekly.com
Earlier this week, federal immigration agents detained a 76-year-old Filipino green card holder, known as Tatay L (“Father” L), at what was supposed to be his citizenship hearing.

Meesh Vergara, the contact for Filipino migrant advocacy organization Tanggol Migrante Movement (TMM).

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ICE has come under fire for the conditions of its facilities, including for hundreds of complaints of medical neglect at the NWIPC alone.

Speakers at the news conference say that ICE agents had denied Tatay L his medication for two days, after detaining him. International Migrante Alliance and Capybara Colectiva member Inez also highlighted that elders like Tatay L are much more susceptible to health complications and infections because of their age alone, never mind other health conditions.

“We have seen healthy people in their 20s go into this detention center and come out completely different on the health scale,” they said. “So, if we’re talking about someone who is well into their 70s, that really does change a lot. Like this person could get an even bigger medical issue in days of being in the detention center without clean water, without access to his medical prescriptions.”

They also pointed out that speakers were “standing next to the altar that La Resistencia has kept up for multiple years of many different people who have actually passed away inside of this detention center. So we may not actually fully understand his medical condition at this time, but what we do know is that people die often inside of this detention center.”

Sorio’s fact sheet details the untreated ulcerative colitis that left him begging “on the floor in deep agony to be admitted to the hospital [on Oct. 15, 2025]. He has to wait three hours before and is forced to walk down the stairs without a wheelchair or stretcher. He is forced to wait another three hours before finally being sent to St. Joseph Medical Center, where is diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.”

He also developed a bone infection that same month.

“[Sorio’s] foot starts swelling to the point he can no longer walk. It is discovered he contracted a bone infection and he is forced to undergo two surgeries to amputate a part of his foot,” the sheet reads. Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 12, “[Sorio] is handcuffed to the bed, under 24/7 surveillance and denied access to his legal counsel for the majority of this time.

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Later in November, despite Sorio’s request to go back to the hospital to get his stitches out, an ICE doctor removed the sutures on Sorio’s foot. According to the fact sheet, it was “a painful, two-hour procedure” in which the doctor “[forced] the stitches out, and [left] the open wound bleeding. Additionally, by this point ICE providers had not redressed [Sorio’s] wounds for four days.”

Sorio allegedly asked Santayana to stop his deportation. At this point, he was also vomiting blood, and had blood in his stool. She allegedly did not, and TMM’s fact sheet records both a lack of response from the Philippine Consulate, and direct actions against what TMM had requested, such as allegedly sending Sorio’s travel documents for his stay of removal request directly to ICE, instead of to TMM, as requested.

Ultimately, ICE attempted to deport Sorio, anyway, who was still using crutches to get around. TMM’s fact sheet notes that the Philippine Consulate “facilitates [Sorio’s] travel document within minutes and ICE escorts [Sorio] onto the plane.”

However, at literally the last minute, because TMM and another Filipino migrant advocacy group, BAYAN WA, were able to deliver Sorio’s medical documents to Philippine Airlines, the airline ultimately stopped his flight, deeming him medically unfit to fly.