A pilgrimage linking Japanese American incarceration sites with present-day immigration detention began in Seattle’s International District this week. About 20 people are walking 48 miles over four days to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, where organizers plan a public rally Saturday. The neighborhood was once home to a thriving Japantown before the war, according to KUOW.
The national advocacy group Tsuru for Solidarity organized the walk. Organizer Emily Yoshioka told KUOW that participants aim to stand with people facing deportation, surveillance and family separation.
Dr. Satsuki Ina, a psychotherapist and survivor of wartime incarceration, is among the marchers. She was born in 1944 at the Tule Lake Segregation Center and remained incarcerated across multiple camps. California State University records say her family was released from the Crystal City, Texas, family internment camp in July 1946; KUOW reported that Ina was two when her family left Tule Lake.
A Route Built From Historical Sites
The route connects sites associated with Japanese American incarceration and current immigration enforcement. KUOW reports that stops include Boeing Field and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Tukwila. Organizers also plan a healing ceremony at the Puyallup fairground, where a former incarceration camp stood.
Camp Harmony was hastily assembled in Puyallup in 1942, where about 7,000 people were crowded into crude barracks before being shipped to permanent inland camps, according to PBS. A Remembrance Gallery at the fairgrounds features a memorial wall honoring those imprisoned there, as reported by KING 5.
After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, Japanese Americans across Washington state were forcibly removed from their homes.
Walking to a Tacoma Detention Center
The Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma is the pilgrimage's planned endpoint.
What an ICE inspection found
A June 2026 inspection by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility found that one of 25 medical records reviewed showed a comprehensive health assessment was not conducted until 22 days after the detainee arrived at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, according to the inspection report.
Boeing Field is one of the pilgrimage's stops.
Tension Spills Into a Tacoma Strip Mall
The walk is taking place amid recent immigration enforcement activity and community protests in Washington state, KUOW reported, including rallies and one-day boycotts. In Tacoma, community members say ICE’s ongoing presence at a strip mall near Portland Avenue and 72nd Street has unsettled neighbors and hurt business at nearby shops, according to the outlet.
Tacoma resident Cary Gallardo has helped organize support for businesses at the strip mall, including a voter registration drive. “I think our privilege to be able to vote, we need to utilize it,” Gallardo said, according to KUOW. The outlet reported that protesters recently gathered around immigration enforcement vehicles, which left soon afterward; supporters later brought food and held a small celebration at the site.
Ina said Japanese Americans continue to recover from the trauma of incarceration eight decades later. She also called for an end to what she described as ICE’s discriminatory and inhumane treatment of children and families, KUOW reported.
