Deanna Keller said the contracts represent a small part of her business, and that she doesn’t support the Trump administration’s actions
By Sean Robinson
For years, Port of Tacoma candidate Deanna Keller’s plastics fabrication business has counted law enforcement agencies among its clients.
The list includes the Tacoma Police Department, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and notably, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
It’s no secret; records of the latter business relationship appear in a public database maintained by the federal General Services Administration.
“Yes, it’s true,” Keller said in a recent interview. “It’s a very small portion of our business, and we’re a very small business.”
The records show 43 transactions since 2009 between ICE and Kel-Tech Plastics Inc., the business Keller leads as president and CEO. The transactions total about $300,000 over the past decade. Most reflect agency purchases of video recording equipment and plastic camera housings for covert surveillance.
Kel-Tech’s primary business involves creating plastic visual displays for retailers such as Nordstrom. Law enforcement clients make up a smaller share of her client base. In a 2014 interview with the City of Tacoma’s “Business Matters” broadcast, Keller explained in general terms the products her company provides to law enforcement. They include plastic liners for cargo vans transporting arrestees and detainees.
The company also builds camera housings for surveillance activity. Keller described them during the broadcast.
“Covert surveillance equipment, where we’ll build the housings,” she said. “We put in the electronics, we program that. …Police or any local or federal law enforcement can take that camera and go from case to case or house to house.”
Before 2016, and before Keller’s run for Position 3 on the Port Commission, doing business with ICE might not have raised an eyebrow. But the election of Donald Trump as president and the resulting immigration crackdown have cast the agency in a different light. The presence of the privately operated Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma’s Tideflats, the heart of the port of Tacoma, adds another layer of complexity.
The NWDC has become a magnet for protest. Activists who decry the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics demonstrate regularly in front of the site. Tacoma city leaders have explored ways to prevent the detention center from expanding.
Aggressive tactics by ICE have also come under scrutiny. In 2017, Gov. Jay Inslee signed an executive order barring state agencies from routinely checking a person’s residency status to search for possible immigration violations. At the time, Inslee said he didn’t want state officers to become “mini-ICE agents.”
Keller’s business relationship with ICE didn’t come up before the Aug. 6 primary election, which saw her finish first with 48 percent of the vote, ahead of opponents Frank Boykin (28 percent) and Justin Camarata (21 percent). She didn’t mention it on her campaign website, nor did the subject surface in candidate forums.
“It’s a complex issue,” Keller said. “We also sold to ICE long before Trump demonized ICE. It has more to do with Donald Trump than it has to do with me or anybody else. I do not subscribe to and don’t believe that what he’s doing is right at all. There’s nothing wrong that we’re doing and I know that and I’m not afraid to say that. Selling to ICE is very, very small, and it has been very sporadic. We’re not a consistent vendor. Our biggest customer is actually Nordstrom.”
Boykin, who finished second in the primary and will face Keller in the Nov. 5 general election, said he didn’t know his opponent’s business included transactions with ICE.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I do know that a candidate’s experience, values and track record are a reason why people vote for them. I believe I have the most experience. I know and understand the values of Pierce County. I trust that those things, coupled with my vision for the Port, will make me the hands-down choice.”
Camarata, who finished third in the primary, said he was aware that ICE has purchased products from Keller’s company, but he chose not to raise it during the campaign.
“We knew about it,” he said. “We basically were just gonna see what the results were. My desire had been to remain positive and above board, and not run an attack-style campaign.”
Kel-Tech’s transactions with ICE and other law enforcement agencies are legal. They’re also small in comparison with local corporate giants such as Amazon and Microsoft. Both do business with ICE that runs into the tens of millions (and both have faced internal and external criticism for it.)
Does it matter if Keller’s company does the same thing on a smaller scale? She said her company has no current contracts with ICE, and she added that she doesn’t support the location of the detention center in the Tideflats.
“We haven’t done anything agreeing with detaining people in the Tideflats at all,” she said. “In fact, six candidates at the candidate’s forum for Citizens for a Healthy Bay all said they didn’t agree with that.”
Camarata, who served briefly on the Tacoma City Council on an interim basis, thinks the information is relevant to voters, particularly those in the progressive-minded areas of Tacoma, where anti-ICE sentiment runs hotter.
“I think in Tacoma it probably is not gonna help,” he said. “It’s certainly relevant, given all the things going around the Northwest Detention Center. It certainly would impact my vote, but I’m not sure I represent the typical Pierce County voter.”
Asked whether she would recuse herself from Port votes that would involve ICE activity, Keller said she would decide such questions case by case, and added she would have no problem doing so.
“I don’t have any contracts underway,” she said. “I’m not selling to them right now. I basically decided to run for office because of the 2016 election. I hope that people will use common sense.”