Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello, with support from the four council Democrats, is proposing a six-month moratorium that would prohibit the siting, expansion or establishment of involuntary detention centers — including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities — in unincorporated Pierce County.
The final vote will be before the Pierce County Council on March 24. It needs a simple majority to pass, or four of seven members to vote in favor, Mello told The News Tribune on Tuesday. The moratorium can be renewed.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center is located on the Tacoma Tideflats. Its population has grown in recent years and was 1,381 as of January. The city of Tacoma’s land-use regulations effectively prohibit adding new detention facilities or expanding that center.
The Northwest ICE Processing Center in January of last year.
(Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com)
President Donald Trump has directed ICE to explore other options to beef up detention capacity in Washington amid his mass deportation campaign.
Mello said as of Tuesday he was not aware of the Department of Homeland Security reaching out to Pierce County about opening a new facility. Such a facility would be allowed in unincorporated Pierce County due to “the extreme vagueness of our county code,” Mello said.
There are many places in unincorporated Pierce County that would be attractive to the Department of Homeland Security based on property size and distance from airports and freeways, Mello said.
“A lot of unincorporated Pierce County fits their criteria, so Pierce County is at risk,” Mello said.
The current code doesn’t differentiate between public involuntary detention centers (like jails or behavioral health centers) and private involuntary detention centers (like ICE processing centers), Mello said. Pierce County is already home to facilities like Western State Hospital, the Special Commitment Center for sex offenders on McNeil Island, a juvenile detention center and the Northwest ICE Processing Center, he said.
Mello said Pierce County “absolutely needs” involuntary detention facilities to support people with behavioral health and substance-abuse challenges, “But where they are, how we manage their impacts, how many we have all needs to be very thoughtful. It can’t be a wild, wild West, anything-goes mentality.”
Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello sits for a portrait in his office on Friday, March 13, 2026, in Tacoma.
(Liesbeth Powers/lpowers@thenewstribune.com)
The six-month moratorium consideration would give staff time to create clearer definitions on such centers and update zoning standards, in addition to location criteria and mitigation requirements “to ensure the appropriate siting of these kinds of facilities,” Mello said.
“I don’t think these decisions should be left to staff at the development counter to be making judgments about, ‘Should something so impactful be cited here?’ I think our policymakers, the County Council, should be really directing that,” Mello said. “And the community should have a ton more say about how their community grows and if these kinds of facilities get sited, how and where.”
Mello clarified that the moratorium would not impact the county’s plans for a new behavioral health crisis center, jail or juvenile detention center.
