On Monday, I had all day to investigate Geo Group. Here I will log what I do for my investigative reporting class.
I started out my day by listening to an hour long conference call where Geo Group announced their fourth qaurter earnings. I learned of the many expansions they have planned for this upcoming year and how much they made last year. Which was over a billion dollars by the way. There was also a direct correlation between the more beds eqauling millions of dollars more in profit. At the end of the conference call, a caller asked if the construction in Tacoma had been completed and the chairman said yes it had. This is a lie, because if you go down to the detention center, you will see incomplete side panneling, construction trucks going in and out and cranes within the fencing.

After a call with a local activist, I learned how much they make per detainee per day, which is $60. This activist also reminded me of the food poisoining that occured in 2007 which made 300 people ill. So I got on the phone to the local health department asking if they had given employees (detainees working for a $1 a day) food handlers permits. They had no record of holding a training for them.

The Tacoma News Tribune retrieved the inspection by the health department of the detention center. This article, while a secondary source, provided good information of the food poisoning outbreak.

In the following days, I read the audit by ICE and the One America report of the detention center.

Reporting on Detention

Today I went down to the Northwest Detention Center that detains over 1500 immigrants and deports over half of the immigrants that come through the center.
I went to collect sources for my investigative report at UWT, during a protest.
I still had my camera, reporters notebook and rain coat, but what I witnessed was completely different. It wasn't a family friendly environment. Families were walking into visit their missing family members and rying to prevent their loved ones from being shipped thousands of miles away.

I talked to an Indonesian Lutheran Pastor who heard about when the NWDC shipped a whole airplane load of Asians out of the country at once, detainees had not signed the voluntary deportation form.

I talked to an activist who was put in jail for being at the center while they would put long term detainee immigrants on bus's and park them in parking lots for a day while they processed immigrants that would be shortly deported.
NWDC makes more profit of long term detainees.

I talked to a One America representative who reminded everyone that coming into the country illegally is a civil offense, not a criminal offense and shouldn't be detained because of it.

This day was very different, then when I took a snapshot of a happy spanish worker at Concrete Tech.

The day in the life of a "reporter"!

Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 9am to 3pm
Today was very exciting.
Concrete Technologies is a company that hires immigrants from Tacoma Community House (TCH) and responsibility (as the Communications Intern for TCH)to highlight them in our upcoming centennial publications. In doing their profile, I interviewed the HR manager, but I also got to take a tour of the company plant.

Concrete Technologies creates giant concrete structures, like bridges, docks, stadiums etc. They are located in the tide flats. Finding them was extremely difficult, because they are really in the heart of the Port of Tacoma (near the water and not near the city center).

With my reporter's notebook, camera, hard hat, glasses and bright vest I felt like a reporter and toured the facility. I met a lot of the workers and saw the interactions. The family owned (third generation immigrants from Norway) business treats their laborers like family and desires only success for them.

When I got back to the office, I wrote up that profile and worked on profiles for other success stories (previous TCH clients). A woman who I did a profile for came into the office to show me pictures of when she was at TCH. You could tell TCH meant a lot to her, because she fondly shared memories with me of how her teachers uplifted her after her self-esteem-busting migration to the states. She told me it was like starting over again. Two pictures she shared with me stuck out in my mind.

One picture is of her family in Austria upset, with all their clothing and cases. Their hotel they were supposed to stay in in Austria was full, so they had to wonder the streets for a few days.
Another picture is of her at Tacoma Community House's summer job smiling with her managers.

Today I learned two things:
1. The importance of the visual elements that show people's faces (working at their job sites, etc) which gives a dynamic story and elements writing can't.
2. The importance of work. The importance of feeling needed, being employed and the importance of company's hiring you and respecting you.

Interviewing Activists and Immigrants

Today, I interviewed one of Tacoma's activists against the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) which has seen the equivalent of the population of Bainbridge Island come through their doors since 2004. 80% of the people that go to the NWDC are deported. Children are left without parents and there is little legal representation for the non-English speakers who are citizens of other countries.

This past month, my eyes have been opened and my time has been consumed with this immigration problem. While working at Tacoma Community House(TCH), I have learned what the troubles of immigrating and what its like to start over new. The joyful smiles of the new citizens and now English speaking immigrants/refugees however, weigh ever so lightly on the unequal scale of unjust (Administration) of deporting immigrants and refugees. Where on the other side there are tears of an activist who has seen young children miss their parents, while parents must leave their children behind and are left with little understanding to what the word deportation means.

What does this mean for me? It means I have an obligation to write about everything I have heard. It means my articles and PR for TCH has a significant place in this community. A community that isn't fully aware of the detention center on tide flats.Through my writing, I hope to establish awareness, pool together people for a common cause and inspire change.