‘IAM Max’: Machinists Rally for Member Detained by ICE
Crystal Londonio, wife of detained Machinist Max Lodonio, speaks at the June 6 rally. Richard Howard, the president of her husband’s Machinists local is at right (in hat) with another local member. Photo: Zack Pattin
Rallying under the banner “IAM Max,” 200 union members and supporters gathered outside the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington, on June 6 to demand the release of Maximo Londonio, a member of Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 695 who has been imprisoned by ICE since mid-May.
“He should not be here, he should be at home with his wife and family,” said Machinists International President Brian Bryant at the rally. “We want everyone that’s illegally in this facility set free.”
Londonio, known as “Kuya” (meaning “big brother”) to his family and co-workers, is the lead forklift driver at Crown Cork and Seal, an aluminum can manufacturer, in Lacey, Washington. He moved to the U.S. with his family in 1997 when he was 12 years old. He and his wife, Crystal, a U.S. citizen, have three daughters. He is a lawful permanent resident with a green card.
The Londonios were returning home from a trip to the Philippines celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary when Max was detained at Sea-Tac Airport. He was held there for five days before being transferred on May 20 to NWDC, a for-profit prison operated by GEO Group.
Bryant said that he recently spoke to a Machinists local in the area on their 125th anniversary. He said he reminded those in attendance that their own union local was probably founded by people just like Max: immigrant workers fighting for a better life.
The rally followed a series of demonstrations in Washington in support of Londonio as well as other union activists detained by ICE. These include Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, a farmworker organizer with Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and Llewelyn Dixon, affectionately known as “Aunty Lynn,” a laboratory technician at the University of Washington and member of SEIU Local 925. Like Londonio, Dixon has a green card.
Along with their unions, the immigrant rights groups Tanggol Migrante, La Resistencia, the International Migrants Alliance, and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) have been working together to demand justice for the detained immigrant workers.
Londonio and Dixon appear to have been targeted by ICE now because they each had a non-violent criminal conviction more than 20 years ago. Crystal Londonio acknowledged this, but said Max “took accountability for his actions” years ago. What has been a non-issue since has been politicized by the Trump administration and is now being used as a weapon to target immigrant workers like Londonio.
After three months in detention, Dixon was released on May 29. Now her family, co-workers, and union are joining with Londonio’s to demand he and everyone else in the facility are set free.
Juarez, who helped win a major heat protection law for farmworkers in 2023, is still being held at NWDC and does not have a hearing scheduled until November.
A ‘STAIN ON TACOMA’
First opened in 2004 and operated by GEO Group since 2005, NWDC was referred to as a “stain on Tacoma” by multiple speakers at the rally. It has been the site of regular protests for years, both outside and inside the facility.
Conditions in the prison are so bad that prisoners conducted a hunger strike in 2014. Liliana Chumpitasi from La Resistencia, an immigrants’ rights organization founded to support the hunger strike, told the crowd about the inhumane conditions inside.
She said there are currently around 1,600 people imprisoned in the facility, compared to 2024 when there were on average 700. Now, as many as 24 people share one bathroom and there are not enough beds to go around, she said.
Many of the bad conditions are not unique to the current administration. Last year, two people died inside the detention center, and 15 others attempted suicide. Physical and sexual violence are routine, and prisoners are afraid to seek medical care for fear of further assault.
ICE INTIMIDATION
April Sims, president of the Washington State Labor Council and a lifelong resident of Tacoma, spoke about how ICE is routinely called in by employers to intimidate workers during organizing drives and is a threat to all organized labor.
WSLC represents 600,000 union members across the state. In 2020, the council joined La Resistencia’s Shut Down the Northwest Detention Center campaign.
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Members of several Machinists locals and districts attended the rally, including Londonio’s Local Lodge 695, as well as IAM Lodges 289 and 2202 and Districts 160 and 751 (at Boeing). They were joined by members of the Teamsters, UFCW, UNITE HERE, the Tacoma Education Association, SEIU, and Longshore and Warehouse (ILWU) Local 23, as well as three central labor councils.
At the rally, Tricia Schroeder, president of Dixon’s SEIU Local 925, announced the news that SEIU California president David Huerta had been assaulted, arrested, and hospitalized during a major ICE raid in Los Angeles. (Huerta was released on June 9 but faces a felony charge.)
“They want us fighting each other and not fighting for wages,” Schroeder warned, saying anti-immigrant propaganda is a way to keep workers from uniting around common interests.
Other speakers tied the crisis immigrants face here to even worse conditions they or their families fled, such as in the Philippines. Marx Rivera, an organizer with Tanggol Migrante, blamed the government of the Philippines for creating the crisis that has driven so many Filipinos out of their country in the first place.
He connected Londonio’s imprisonment to the repression against slain ILWU activists Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, who were murdered in Seattle in 1981 by agents of the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines.
LABOR IN MOTION
A local grocery worker and member of UFCW 367 at Friday’s rally explained that she hadn’t been involved in immigrant justice before and didn’t usually attend protests either. But big changes in her local union, especially new leadership and recent rounds of open bargaining for their grocery store contracts, and her friendship with Londonio’s local union president, Richard Howard, got her more active in her own union, leading her to join the rally.
When workers and their loved ones are subjected to ICE raids and imprisonment, everyone else affected by that repression becomes a potential friend and ally. Dixon’s nieces and co-workers are now rallying for Londonio and continue fighting for Lelo Juarez. The Londonio family is now fighting for them and everyone else in the facility, with the support of Londonio’s union fully behind them.
“We’re fighting for the ones we love, and not just our families, but everyone inside there who doesn’t have a voice or the support we do,” said Crystal Londonio. “We will continue to fight to free them all.”
What to Do If ICE Comes to Your Workplace
The workplace is one of the most frequent sites for ICE raids. The International Migrants Alliance gave a quick know your rights workshop at the June 6 rally outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Here’s their advice on what you can do to protect yourself and your co-workers:
- Right to remain silent. All you have to do is say it out loud—“I have the right to remain silent”—and then refuse to answer any other questions.
- Right to refuse entry. Unless ICE has a warrant signed by a judge for that exact address, it’s trespassing. You can even call the cops on them.
- Right to refuse to sign anything. Same as the right to remain silent, you don’t have to sign anything without an attorney present.
- If you’re a U.S. citizen, you don’t have to prove it. Don’t show them your ID just because they ask for it.
- If you’re not a U.S. citizen, don’t carry any false documentation. If you’re caught with it, it will only make your case harder.
If you’re not an immigrant and see ICE on the job, intervene and stick up for your co-workers. You can’t legally impede ICE agents from carrying out their duties, but you can record and photograph them—even if they say otherwise.
Zack Pattin is a longshore worker at the Port of Tacoma and an executive board member of ILWU Local 23.
