05-01-2026 - Tacoma WA - GEO Group “CERT” employees hiding in NWDC parking lot.
Background: The Northwest Detention Center, also known as the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWDC/NWIPC), is for-profit owned and operated by GEO Group, located in Tacoma, Washington.
“CERT Teams are SWAT-Like units meant to surveil and repress detained people at NWDC”. “Every time I see that uniform with CERT, I have a panic attack, think something is going to happen to me. I got assaulted once CERT staff. When I see them, I stay away from them” - NWDC detainee, 04/28/2025, La Resistencia
On September 1st 2025, we attended a protest at the NWDC in Tacoma WA, and took a photo of a GEO Group employee in a black uniform wearing a black tactical vest with a unique patch. We researched the patch at the time, but didn’t find anything conclusive. *If you have a better photo, specific insight, or design-identifying information on this patch, let us know.*
“I have been a subject of sheer retaliation by GEO (officer Berame) and his CERT gang due to my grievances. They have been retaliating with bogus write up, biased hearings, and solitary confinement with the blessing of higher management and ICE. Subsequently, i submitted a couple of grievances against Berame he told me, I’m ‘just an immigrant. Nobody is going to believe (me).’ He is right about that because no one does anything about these dehumanizing and abusive behaviors. They can do anything with impunity, including sexual harassments.” – 02/20/2024, La Resistencia
During a May 1st 2026 protest at the NWDC, we noticed (2) GEO Group employees hiding behind a tinted, black 4x4 Ford F150 truck. Both kept peering over the back of the truck bed off/on. One of them was wearing a black “CERT” hat. Once they decided to stop hiding and go inside, both appeared to be wearing “CERT” hats along with (the now-identified) “CERT” patches on their uniforms.
According to a 2023 PDF on geogroup.com, “C.E.R.T.” is cited as an acronym for “Correctional Emergency Response Team”. However, according to a later 2024 PDF on geogroup.com, “C.E.R.T.” is listed as “Community Emergency Response Team”. This slip-up in the 2024 document is not entirely an accident.
Both 2023 and 2024 documents detail separate instances of CERT directing up to (50) middle school students (in Folkston GA, from a Junior Sheriff’s Academy) in use-of-force demonstrations. In 2023 and 2024 photos, middle school students are pictured “in full riot gear” handcuffing people.
https://geogroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/GEO-World-Q2-2023.pdf – (Page 11)
https://www.geogroup.com/media/d4nfxbbz/2q-geo-world-2024_final-resize.pdf – (Page 19)
“GEO Prison sent their CERT Team to demonstrate the importance of their rapid response to unruly prisoners!” - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10222593249916209&set=pb.1120666873.-2207520000&type=3
NPR’s 2025 article on GEO Group and ICE in Folkston GA is worth the read: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/13/nx-s1-5538441/ice-detainees-folkston-georgia
“How awful for carceral facilities to co-opt the term CERT! The COMMUNITY Emergency Response Team program (in contrast to the correctional Emergency Response Team program), has a history of outstanding support during times of distress and duress during natural disaster, mobilizing citizens and residents to aid in emergency communications and service to anyone regardless of status.” – social media response.
This comment highlights the “CERT” acronym being widely understood and utilized for purposes quite different than instilling fear within a privately operated detention center. A quick Google search for “Community Emergency Response Team” returns a variety of local and federal services across the U.S.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=Community+Emergency+Response+Team
When the (2) GEO Group employees exited from hiding behind the truck, they weren’t just wearing “CERT” gear, they were also wearing name tags. One of the name tags was “Berame”. It would seem certain there’s only one Tacoma GEO Group employee with that name. See quotes from “La Resistencia”
Berame is mentioned 15x in graphic detail within a recent 02/12/2026 article on prospect.org:
“The three plaintiffs, all Black men in Tacoma, Washington’s Northwest ICE Processing Center, say that the assaults reflect a “recurring pattern by a group of guards,” especially defendants Justin Berame and Kobe Suafoa.”
https://prospect.org/2026/02/12/ice-immigration-prison-geo-group-trump/
So, that’s why GEO Group “CERT” employees were hiding in the parking lot.
“The guard was also involved in the alleged assaults on the two other plaintiffs, and he carried a mug adorned with a sticker of the Proud Boys, the right-wing extremist group, according to the suit. The filing, noting each plaintiff is Black, alleges that GEO Group “determined it appropriate to allow openly racist employees substantial power over non-white incarcerated persons.”
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article314608363.html
Assaults and sexual assaults are not new topics at the NWDC. Last year, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights released a detailed report on assaults at the NWDC, largely pinning inaction on the Tacoma Police Department, ICE, and GEO Group. In 2024, TPD erroneously reported the privately run for-profit detention center was “Not TPD jurisdiction” and to “let staff know they can handle the complaint in house”
https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/04/24/conditions-at-the-nwdc-patterns-of-neglect-in-tpd-response-to-abuse-and-assault/
--> 10 slides, see thread below
#Tacoma #TacomaWA #ICE #GEOGroup #NWDC #NWIPC #ShutdownNWDC #ShutdownNWIPC
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