Five migrant teenage boys escaped an immigration detention center near Seattle after two of them allegedly assaulted the guards and grabbed a key, according to court documents released Tuesday.
The June 17 escape occurred “at the Selma Carson Home, a 23-bed medium-security” immigration detention facility in Fife, Washington, that houses unaccompanied migrant boys awaiting federal immigration hearings, court documents obtained by the News Tribune revealed.
Charging documents stated that a 17-year-old boy called a female guard before using a fire extinguisher to spray its contents in the woman’s face while a second 17-year-old boy grabbed another fire extinguisher and sprayed another guard.
One of the teens then snatched a key card hanging on a guard’s wrist and used it to escape the facility.
Two of the boys faced charges as juveniles, but both their cases had been transferred to adult court once they turned 18. All of the boys remain at large months after the escape.
Other migrant teenagers held in immigration detention facilities for minors have escaped their facilities. In June, a 15-year-old Honduran boy escaped a shelter for migrant children in Brownsville, Texas.
Authorities say the teen headed for Mexico to begin his journey back to his home country.
The following month, former employees of a Baytown, Texas, detention center for migrant children reported multiple instances of underage migrant children escaping the facility.