A four-day, 48-mile march led by Japanese American incarceration survivors arrives in Tacoma on Saturday, Oct. 10, ending at the Northwest ICE Processing Center with a public rally.
About 20 marchers set out Wednesday, Oct. 7, from Seattle's International District, KUOW reported. The pilgrimage, organized by Tsuru for Solidarity, a Japanese American advocacy group, passes through immigration enforcement sites on its way to Tacoma's detention center.
Saturday's rally runs from 1 to 3 p.m. at 1623 East J St. and is co-hosted by La Resistencia and Urban Grace Church, according to the event schedule. The event is free and open to the public.
Among the marchers is Satsuki Ina, who was born in a World War II incarceration camp. She walked with a cane in one hand and a sign reading "Concentration Camp Survivors" in the other, above a photo of two young girls outside camp barracks.
"We're destroying children's lives every day," Ina told KUOW on Wednesday, Oct. 7. "Japanese Americans are still recovering from the trauma of our incarceration 80 years later."
The route includes stops at Boeing Field, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) building in Tukwila and a healing ceremony at the Puyallup Fairground, site of a former incarceration camp. At Boeing Field on Wednesday, participants hung paper cranes near the airport. La Resistencia's Josefina Mora-Cheung told KING 5 her organization tracked 124 ICE flights through Boeing Field during the first 10 months of 2026, involving 4,283 people deported or transferred.
The pilgrimage arrives as East Tacoma residents report escalating federal immigration enforcement near their neighborhood businesses.
At a strip mall near Portland Avenue and East 72nd Street, business owners say ICE vehicles have parked in the lot repeatedly, driving away customers. The shopping center is home to several Latino-owned businesses, including Surtidora's Bakery. Owner Aldo told KING 5, which first reported the strip mall activity, that agents showed up almost every day the previous week and parked in the lot, scaring away customers.
ICE agents arrested two men in the same parking lot in July, KING 5 reported. Community-generated reports compiled by ICEOut.org showed Pierce County logged 50 ICE-related sightings in a single week in early October, up from 29 the week before. Those reports are not an official count of enforcement actions.
On Sunday, Oct. 4, immigration enforcement vehicles returned to the strip mall. Protesters surrounded the vehicles, blew whistles and chanted. The vehicles left. More supporters arrived with food, turning the confrontation into a celebration, according to KUOW.
Tacoma resident Cary Gallardo, who helped organize the Oct. 4 rally at the strip mall, said in a social media video that day that the goal was to show solidarity with the harassed businesses. Gallardo is also organizing a voter registration drive in connection with the community response.
Business owners and neighbors have developed an informal warning system: when someone spots a suspicious vehicle, they call a community organization that sends people to the site. KING 5 reported that ICE did not respond to a request for comment about its activity near the shopping center.
Saturday's rally at the detention center is the final stop on a route that also passes through communities organizing boycotts and rallies across Washington state. Gallardo's voter registration drive is scheduled alongside the ongoing strip mall support effort.
