The Barber’s Story

Tacoma Community House recently launched a program to support individuals in detention through visits. Zak Humm (pictured above) will serve as an AmeriCorps Member with Tacoma Community House over the next year.

 

Please do all you can to advocate and support immigrant families experiencing detention, family separation. We know that a better future is possible for our community when we stand beside those in need.

 

Here is a story about a recent visit he had at a detention center:

 

This story is one of resilience while living in crisis. I first met the man who for the purpose of anonymity in this story will be called “The Barber” in the fall of 2026. A man who despite living in detention for well over a year has made the best of his circumstances. The Barber is a man who came to the United States, as most people do, to build a better life. Entering the United States when he was still a child he came into the country lamentably, without inspection.

 

The Barber is a bright intelligent curious and wise man in his late twenties. In a situation that from the outside appears to be hopeless, The Barber still has hope that he can live a normal life in the place he has called home for over a decade. Living in detention waiting on an appeal from almost a year prior, The Barber finds solace in keeping his mind and his hands busy. The Barber does not have a certificate, has not gone to formal schooling and yet, he provides his services within the walls of the Northwest Ice Processing Center (NWIPC) in Tacoma, WA.

 

Upon meeting the Barber I felt powerless, wishing I could do more to change his circumstances and those of so many others in detention. The status quo of immigration enforcement in 2026 is no doubt meant to intimidate, debilitate, exhaust and coerce communities, families, and victims into apathy complacency and cooperation with a punitive and inhumane system. The Barber lives in ambiguity not knowing whether his appeal will be approved, unsure if he will be released on a habeas petition or deported from the United States. Even if he is deported, would he go back to the country his family left, or one he’s never been to?

 

Living with this uncertainty and feeling as though those who hold him operate above the law, he still finds a way to stay busy and hold onto his dream. The Barber cuts his own hair and that of fellow people being held at NWIPC. He has told me about people within that community whose hair and facial hair have become shaggy unkempt and overgrown. The Barber transforms these people from unrecognizable reflections of themselves, into ones which they do recognize. This act of kindness is also one of survival, perseverance and resilience.