Immigration agents detain, send home crew after failed WA ferry tow

SEATTLE – Four mariners tasked with transporting two retired state ferries to Ecuador for scrapping became ensnared in the U.S. immigration system after failing to move the vessels.

The crew members – from Peru, Colombia and Panama – had been aboard the tugboat Wycliffe for weeks, and unable to go to shore. Local advocates say the sailors were mistreated and underpaid by their employer, Ecuadorian Nelson Armas, and were lacking necessary food and medication.

On Thursday, advocates said U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detained the men and took them to a detention facility near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, with plans to send them home on flights later in the day. The crew appeared to leave in a hurry, with provisions and food items scattered around the abandoned tug.

“We’re trying to help facilitate so they can be repatriated,” said Rich Shively, executive director of the Seattle Seafarers Center. “Our only concern, really, is that the crew be sent back home in as efficient a way as possible, and compensated for their time. Also, their visa status should not be damaged, so they can continue to work” in the U.S.

The mariners’ troubles began last week, after they couldn’t successfully connect the two ferries – the Elwha and Klahowya – in tandem to their tug, which was to tow the vessels south for 35 days on the open sea. Crews with Western Tugboat, a local operator assisting them, returned the ferries to Washington State Ferries’ Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility.

“We were just going to hook up the tandem tow in Eagle Harbor, but they had a problem with the winch,” said Russ Shrewsbury, co-owner of Western Towboat.

To speed the process, Shrewsbury’s crew towed the ferries about 2 miles away from Eagle Harbor, but the Wycliffe’s crew still wasn’t prepared to take possession of the boats.

“It was time to pull the plug because we had other things to do,” Shrewsbury said.

With the boats back in the state’s hands, Armas’ contract was canceled and he lost his insurance. With no official work, the sailors’ work visas were no longer valid. On Monday, CBP agents went aboard the tug, questioned the men in Spanish and confiscated their passports.

Requests for comment from CBP were not returned. Armas was unable to be reached.

Julia Cooper, director of operations for Seattle Seafarers Center, said she’s been on the Wycliffe “half a dozen” times in the last week or so. She’s picked up food and medication for the men, including bottled water, juice, chicken, tortillas, snacks and eggs. One man told her he’d fallen and was urinating blood, but said more recently he was fine and didn’t need medical attention.

This week, Cooper was on the ship when Armas showed up.

She said called the interaction with the owner “weird,” and that he asked why the group was aboard the tug. Armas told her, she said, that he was bringing them provisions every week and provided the crew a SIM card.

“The crew was very quiet when he was there. It seemed like they couldn’t speak up,” Cooper said.

Cyrus Donato, the Puget Sound inspector for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, said he’s had safety concerns about Armas and the vessel since October . The state ferries, he said, were “being towed by exploitative labor practices.”

He blamed Armas for what he described as the poor condition of the boat and lack of pay for mariners, but also said the U.S. Coast Guard and state ferry system bore responsibility for lax regulations and oversight.

“This person was essentially allowed to run around the regulations,” Donato said. “This vessel had a ‘do not sail’ order from the Coast Guard for nine months, and then they rescinded it.”

Multiple calls to the Coast Guard seeking comment were unanswered.

Dana Warr, a ferry system spokesperson, said the agency was unaware of the mariners’ situation and was not responsible.

The state ferry system “was not part of hiring the crew, nor should we have been,” Warr said in an email. “WSF has, as always, followed every state procurement law regarding surplus state property in selling these vessels that have been decommissioned.”

The Elwha and Klahowya ferries, out of commission since 2020 and 2017, respectively, were sold to Armas for $100,000 each. The ferry system previously said the sale alleviates costs and staffing concerns associated with storing and moving the old ferries around shipyard facilities.

Donato, with the international union, said a similar situation happened in 2017, when 12 sailors from Mexico and Panama were stranded without pay for months on two vessels in Lake Union, the Nakolo and Pacific Challenger, that were not affiliated with the ferry system.

People with Donato’s group helped raise money for the stranded mariners and finally figured out who owned the old vessels. With help from lawyers from the Mexican Consulate, Donato’s organization secured nearly $100,000 in back wages for the men. A local immigration attorney worked for free to help get the men home.

In the case of the Wycliffe’s crew, Donato said he lost contact with them Thursday, though in the afternoon he’d heard from a source at CBP that Armas had come to the CBP field office near Sea-Tac and paid the crew “additional cash” and that the crew was “all good.”

Still, he’s not pleased with how they got there.

“I don’t know what kind of due diligence process Washington State Ferries uses, selling it to highest bidder. Or lowest bidder,” he said. “But it isn’t appropriate.”