ICE releases Wash. detainee after 'unreasonable failures of care'

Ryan Nguyen, The Seattle Times on Feb 15, 2026

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A man from the Philippines awaiting the result of a deportation order has been released from Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Center following a federal court order that called the man’s detention unconstitutionally “punitive.”

U.S. District Judge Tana Lin granted the release requested in Greggy Sorio’s habeas corpus petition Friday, stating that the Tacoma detention center’s “unreasonable treatment” of Sorio brought about “extreme consequences” for his health.

While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, Sorio — also known as “Kuya G” — developed a bone infection that led to health care providers amputating one of his toes and a portion of his foot.

“I just want to say thank you to everyone. I'm speechless,” Sorio, 37, said during a celebration hosted by the Tanggol Migrante Movement, according to a statement from the organization, which described Sorio’s release as “an unexpected announcement.”

Though the court order released Sorio from the Tacoma detention center, he still faces a deportation order and the threat of removal from the U.S.

Sorio came to the U.S. on a green card in 2007. He is originally from Lingayen, Pangasinan, in the Philippines.

‘Objectively unreasonable failures’

When Sorio initially entered ICE detention in March he “was in good health,” according to court documents.

ICE officials arrested Sorio in 2025 after he finished serving prison time in Alaska. He was arrested in 2023 and then pleaded guilty to recklessly causing injury to another person the following year. Before then, he was convicted of convicted of burglary in 2019; fourth-degree assault in 2017; reckless endangerment in 2016 and reckless injury in 2010.

While at the detention center, Sorio developed several health issues: a serious bone infection that led to physicians amputating one of his toes and part of his foot; a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease; acute blood loss anemia; and “dramatic unintended weight loss,” according to court documents.

Sorio suffered irreparable injury as a result of his detainment and the lack of medical care at the detention center, his attorney Louise Carhart said.

“But, in her opinion, in response to the medical neglect that he suffered, the appropriate relief was immediate release,” Carhart said of the federal judge’s order.

Detention center staff also denied Sorio immediate medical care repeatedly, Lin wrote. When Sorio began complaining about passing blood in his stool and rectal bleeding, staff members waited more than a month to refer him to a gastroenterologist and denied Sorio’s requests to be taken to the hospital.

At the peak of Sorio’s abdominal pain, detention center staff ignored Sorio’s “screams and cries of pain for three hours,” forced him to walk down stairs while in pain and waited multiple hours before sending him to the hospital, among other issues.

By the time officials took Sorio to the hospital, health care providers had to amputate one of Sorio’s toes and a portion of his foot.

“(Sorio's) medical care, and denial of medical care, included objectively unreasonable failures of care that more likely than not resulted in permanent disability, including the loss of his toe and part of his foot,” Lin wrote.

An ICE spokesperson did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Next steps for Sorio

Now, community organizers are helping Sorio — whose nickname in Tagalog means “Big Brother G” — receive medical care and fill out necessary legal paperwork, said Noah Ajeto, the chairperson of Migrante Southcenter, an organization part of the Tanggol Migrante Movement.

Filipino community and health care advocates have rallied against Sorio’s expected deportation, as well as how detention center staff have been slow to treat Sorio’s health problems. The Tanggol Migrante Movement is a coalition of more than 250 organizations that supports the rights of Filipino migrants.

The Tanggol Migrante Movement “reasserts their commitment to fully overturning Kuya G’s deportation, and getting him the urgent medical treatment he needs,” the organization said in a statement Friday.

Ajeto said that the organization had been in the midst of planning an annual celebration of its work when organizers learned Sorio had been released, calling it “a people’s victory.”

“It was really inspiring for a lot of people,” Ajeto said. “Many of the people at that celebration had done the weekly visits, and many of them had contributed to his commissary and showed up to the rallies. So they're all very invested.”

Previously, Sorio had been set to be deported to the Philippines in December. But airline officials pulled him off the flight at the last minute due to his poor health, including recent amputations.

Sorio’s partner and two children are all U.S. citizens and live in Kodiak, Alaska.

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