Labor rallies for Lewelyn and Lelo

Hundreds rallied Thursday, calling for the release of union siblings and all those held in the inhumane conditions at the privately-run Tacoma detention center

TACOMA, WA (March 28, 2025) — Union members and community allies packed the street in front of the NW Detention Center Thursday evening, calling for the release of Alfredo ‘Lelo’ Juarez Zeferino and Lewelyn Dixon, and all of the people held at the for-profit facility.

“This is about immigrant workers detained by ICE, yes,” said Cherika Carter, Secretary Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, in rally remarks. “But it’s also about a system that punishes us for raising our voices. A system that fears organized people more than it fears injustice. One that profits from division, depends on fear, and silences resistance. This system is not broken—it’s working exactly as it was designed: to protect corporate power, suppress dissent, and keep working people fighting each other instead of fighting back.”

Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez is an organizer and member of Familias Unidas por la Justicia and Community to Community who came to this country as a young teenager. He was detained and sent to the detention center on Tuesday, March 25. According to witnesses, Lelo was on his way to drop off his partner at her work place when he was stopped and ICE agents broke his car window when he tried to exercise his rights. At the rally, Lelo’s younger brother took the mic to thank attendees for showing up for his brother, and to call for his release.

Lewelyn is an SEIU Local 925 member who works as a lab technician at UW Medicine. She has lived in the United States for more than five decades and is a green card holder. Lewelyn has been held at the NW Detention Center since early March. Dale Siewert, one of Lewelyn’s coworkers, spoke at the rally, saying she is the coworker he can always go to for questions. Dale was moved to speak out because of how important Lewelyn — Auntie Lyn to loved ones — is to her coworkers.

SEIU members at the rally. Dale Siewert (far right) spoke at the rally in support of Lewelyn, his coworker. Photo: SEIU 925

Along with calls to free detained union siblings, speakers and rallygoers are demanding that this ICE detention facility be shut down. The NW Detention Center is a private facility, run by GEO Group, a company that saw it’s stock price surge upon news of President Trump’s election.

GEO group’s stock price is built on human misery. A $4 billion company, they’re fighting to pay detained people as little as a dollar a day for their work. And conditions in this for-profit detention center are horrific. Essential medical care is routinely denied, and multiple people held there have died in the past year. One of those people, Charles Leo Daniel, was held in solitary confinement for more than 800 days.

Union members plan to join community on Saturday, March 29 at 1:00 p.m. for another rally at the detention center hosted by La Resistencia, an advocacy group that works both within and outside of the private prison, pushing for all those held in the facility to be freed and for NWDC to be shut down.

“We believe that workers should be free: free to organize, free to stay with their families, free to dream, and free to dissent,” said Cherika Carter. “That’s not radical—it’s the foundation of our very democracy. And we will defend that today and every day until we all win.”

SEIU 925 is calling on UW to protect immigrant employees, running an email campaign pressuring UW administrators to protect Lewelyn’s job, allow her to use leave while in detention or immigration proceedings, to extend these protections to all immigrant employees, and to run trainings for all employees on immigration officials in the workplace and potential risks.

Send an email to UW administrators today. 

Community 2 Community and the farmworker organizing community in NW Washington are fundraising for Lelo’s legal defense fund. Donations can be made online, or checks can be mailed to: Community to Community Development PO Box 1646 Bellingham, WA 98227.