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KENT, Wash. - Seventeen immigrants were arrested during an ICE raid in Kent on Tuesday.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a multi-agency investigation was being conducted on Eagle Beverage at the West Valley Business Park in Kent.

The company makes specialty beverage products — beverage mixes, syrups, teas, frappes, cocoa, cider, sweet spices and straws — according to their website.

Federal authorities assert the Eagle Beverage illegally employed immigrants without work authorization.

ICE agents served a search warrant and raided the facility on Monday.

The agency says 17 people had "fraudulently represented their immigration status" and were arrested during the raid.

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Public health officials announced Tuesday that someone with measles traveled through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Saturday.

The King County adult was likely infected while traveling internationally and was in the airport from 4:30 to 8:45 p.m., according to Public Health Seattle-King County. While there, the person arrived at gate S8 in the S concourse of international arrivals; went through the international arrivals facility through customs and used carousel 21 of baggage claim; then, exited through the Gina Marie Hall — the south end of the main terminal.

That person was also infectious while at Overlake Medical Center’s emergency department entrance and waiting room in Bellevue from 6 to 8:20 p.m. Sunday. The person’s vaccination status is unknown, and the case isn’t connected with previous local measles infections.

The public health agency said anyone infected through proximity would most likely start to become sick between Saturday and June 8. People who are immunocompromised may take longer to experience symptoms.

This is the sixth measles case in Washington this year.

“With more measles cases globally and in the U.S., if you are planning to travel, it’s always a good idea to make sure you’re up to date on all your vaccinations,” Meagan Kay, King County’s medical epidemiologist, said in a news release. “But if you’re traveling abroad or to an area of the U.S. with a measles outbreak, it’s especially important that you’re well protected from measles.”

Measles is highly contagious, causing fever, rash, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infected people are contagious from four days before the rash to four days after.

One measles-infected person can spread the virus to up to nine out of 10 nearby people without protection, the health department said.

For more information about measles, including where to get vaccinations, visit kingcounty.gov/measles.

Caitlyn Freeman: cfreeman@seattletimes.com.

The Mental Health Project is a Seattle Times initiative focused on covering mental and behavioral health issues. It is funded by Ballmer Group, a national organization focused on economic mobility for children and families. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over work produced by this team.

VANCOUVER, Wash. — A brand-new behavioral health campus in Vancouver is nearly ready to open — with landscaping and signage in place — but will sit empty for the foreseeable future as lawmakers cut funding for the facility in the state budget.

The Brockmann Residential Treatment Facility is currently under construction and was supposed to serve 48 patients across three 16-bed facilities on the campus.

But the $42 million facility, which is scheduled to be completed in June, has no opening date. The Washington Legislature instead opted to fund a “warm closure,” paying staff to maintain the facility and property but not to open for patients.

It’s the latest in a series of brand-new Washington behavioral health facilities that haven’t been able to fully open in recent months, despite millions invested in their construction. While state lawmakers have spoken about the importance of building up smaller behavioral health treatment centers around Washington, bureaucratic hurdles and funding shortages frequently have forced them to delay or indefinitely halt admissions.

The cuts that led the state to halt admissions at the Brockmann facility stemmed from the state’s $16 billion budget shortfall, although lawmakers did not announce plans to remove funding for the treatment center earlier in the session.

Cynthia Shipley, a spokesperson from the Department of Social and Health Services, which would have operated the facility, said the agency did not know in advance about plans to cut the operating budget for the behavioral health campus.

Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, said the cuts shouldn’t have any immediate effects, as projections from DSHS show that the state has enough beds for the next year or two.

“This was one of many difficult calls our budget writing team had to make,” Dhingra said in an email. “But delaying the project rather than cutting it will allow it to be completed when we are on stronger financial footing. Meanwhile, the available beds should provide some assurance for patients and the staff who do this important work.”

Sen. Adrian Cortes, D-Vancouver, said that he and other lawmakers plan to revisit the issue in a year or two to see if they can fund the center’s opening.

Cortes said his constituents were excited to have the facility open, as it “addressed a need in the district and beyond.”

He said he’s not worried that the delays will cause the state to lose momentum with its behavioral health goals.

“Mental health and all the components that touch it are such in need,” he said. “I think restarting (the funding process) would be a priority on any legislator’s plate, or at least it should be. It is certainly on mine.”

How an old federal rule limits inpatient mental health beds in Washington

But the cuts illustrate the bigger challenges with trying to build out the state’s behavioral health system, particularly as it tries to shift the role of Western State Hospital and find placements for patients no longer served there.

In 2018, then-Gov. Jay Inslee announced a plan to revamp the state’s behavioral health system. Part of the plan included shifting all the patients committed through the civil court system — those not charged with crimes but found by a court to be ill enough to need long-term hospitalization and treatment — out of Western State Hospital and into smaller community treatment centers around the state.

But as the state has slowly constructed new buildings, and as local governments and other operators also build out elements of the system, they’ve run into a few consistent challenges — most related to funding and staffing.

The Brockmann facility is set back off a rural Vancouver road, in a field now blooming with spring flowers. A high school and some homes sit nearby.

It was supposed to take civil commitment patients from Western State Hospital, said Shipley.

But when the Legislature passed the budget last month, it included funds for a “warm closure” for the campus — $595,000 over the next two years to pay a few staff to maintain the facility and property. But the budget included cuts of more than $74.4 million in state funding for the facility.

Shipley said that means DSHS will be unable to hire staff or accept patients into the facility “for the foreseeable future, until operational funding is provided.”

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Community leaders and lawmakers haven’t hidden their frustration in recent months about having brand-new behavioral health facilities sitting empty or largely empty.

Crisis centers around the state, meant to be walk-in facilities for people in need of immediate behavioral health care, are among those that have faced obstacles: Some centers, like one in Lynnwood, haven’t been able to open because local officials can’t find an operator who can make the financial model work.

“I have a finished, beautiful, done, painted, furnished behavioral health facility for crisis services in my district, and a behavioral health crisis raging outside, and it’s empty,” state Rep. Lauren Davis, D-Shoreline, said in February about the Lynnwood center.

One of the biggest new projects in the state also faced obstacles: Earlier this year, UW Medicine announced it had temporarily halted admission to its Center for Behavioral Health and Learning. The university said it was unable to bring new patients in because it couldn’t find adequate legal representation for patients in court. The King County Department of Public Defense said it was overwhelmed with cases and didn’t have enough funding to take on new ones.

New UW behavioral health hospital limits admissions amid defense dispute

Gov. Bob Ferguson stepped in and directed the state Office of Public Defense to begin assisting with cases immediately, and a bill sponsored by Dhingra passed this session to offer more options to county public defenders.

But a few months later, UW Medicine said it was laying off one-tenth of its staff at the new facility, due to low numbers of patients coming in.

Jayati Ramakrishnan: jramakrishnan@seattletimes.com.

Something unusual happened when attorney Sofia Velling went to a Seattle immigration court hearing Tuesday with an asylum-seeker. Out of the blue, she said, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney moved to dismiss deportation proceedings against her client.

Stationed in the hallway outside were several ICE officers — a rare sight in the court, housed in a federal office building downtown. Those who have hearings there typically have no reason to be arrested by ICE since they are already in deportation proceedings.

Yet, ICE officers appeared to arrest at least three people — two men and one woman — there Tuesday. Officers led the three into an elevator in handcuffs and waist shackles. ICE officers questioned and released a fourth person.

Velling’s client, a Venezuelan woman who applied for asylum shortly after arriving in the U.S. in December 2023, was not among those arrested or questioned. But what happened at the client’s hearing earlier, Velling and other immigration attorneys believe, is connected. The attorneys suspect ICE is attempting to dismiss immigration court cases so it can fast-track deportations through a process — called expedited removal — that does not involve judges.

Someone in expedited removal can be put on a plane leaving the country in a matter of hours, said Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

The ICE officers at immigration court said they were not allowed to talk to the press. An ICE spokesperson did not respond to inquiries.

If the attorneys’ suspicions are true, ICE is carrying out the Trump administration’s latest strategy to amp up deportations, which have been lagging behind the massive numbers the administration has said it wants. Immigration attorneys said such an approach would deny people the right to have their cases heard in court.

“It feels like an underhanded way to circumvent protections for people,” said Gabe Harrison, a Bellingham immigration lawyer who saw the ICE officers outside the courtroom.

Harrison also worried the presence of ICE officers and possibility of arrest would scare people away from attending hearings. That would likely result in removal orders handed down because they didn’t show up, which can also lead to quick deportation.

Tuesday morning, ICE officers followed two men who left the courtroom and went into a hallway bathroom. When the men came out, they took one immediately through a door off another hallway. The officers got the other man’s name and walked away. Then, an officer circled back after checking his phone and took the second man through the same door.

The officers released that man soon after.

Later, ICE officers opened the door and brought out the three in handcuffs and shackles. Under previous administrations, the government used expedited removal to arrest people within 14 days of their arriving in the U.S. unlawfully. They also had to be within 100 miles of the border. President Donald Trump, in an executive order soon after taking office, expanded the policy so it could be used for unauthorized immigrants anywhere in the U.S. who arrived in the country within the last two years.

People in deportation proceedings who file an asylum application, like Velling’s client, normally can be detained but not deported until a judge reaches a decision on their application. But if the proceedings are dismissed, the asylum applications are no longer pending, said Velling, who works for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

“They can be picked up,” she said.

At least, ICE can do so unless those with dismissed proceedings have a chance to file a new asylum application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Immigration court hears asylum applications for people in deportation proceedings while USCIS handles such applications for everyone else.

Velling, at her client’s morning hearing, objected to the government dismissal request and the judge gave her time to submit an argument. When the attorney left the courtroom with her client, she saw ICE officers standing by the elevator. They said nothing.

But the episode left Velling shaken.

“It was really shocking,” she said. “I felt scared for my client.”

She said she feared even more for those without attorneys who could object to requests to terminate proceedings.

Nina Shapiro: 206-464-3303 or nshapiro@seattletimes.com.

Filipino father detained at Sea-Tac Airport for days

A local father and longtime legal immigrant could be transferred to an ICE facility after being detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Sea-Tac Airport for days.

The Brief

A local father and longtime legal immigrant has been held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for the past five days, and could be transferred to an ICE facility at any moment.

The backstory:

According to the migrant-led campaign group "Tanggol Migrante Network," Filipino green card holder Maximo Londonio has been detained at Sea-Tac Airport since May 15, following a trip to the Philippines with his family.

The group claims Londonio was taken in front of his wife and kids, and are demanding his release. They say he's only been fed instant noodles and feels forgotten.

"The lack of accountability by the United States CBP is failing him right now; it's failing everybody. It's being taken from everyone that seeks refuge here; that seeks freedom; that seeks equality. I'm tired of waiting. I want him home," said Crystal, Max's wife, at a rally on Monday.

Londonio has "older, non-violent convictions," the Tanggol Migrante Network acknowledged.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 695 confirmed Londonio is a lead forklift driver at a facility in Lacey, where he's worked since 2017.

The union president released a statement calling for his release, and says they are working with their employer to maintain his job.

Londonio's detainment comes months after Lewelyn Dixon, a Filipina lab technician at the University of Washington, was also taken away by Customs at Sea-Tac Airport.

Dixon holds a green card, and was taken to the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, possibly over an embezzlement conviction back in 2001.

FOX 13 Seattle has reached out to ICE for comment on these cases and if Londonio has been transferred to ICE detention. We are waiting to hear back.

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