Immigration agents send tugboat crew home from Washington [Video]

SEATTLE — Washington State Ferries sold two decommissioned vessels for $100,000 each to a buyer who had plans to tow the boats to South America this month. But the move did not happen. 

Now, there is more fallout from the ferry tow that went wrong.

“This could have been a disaster,” said Rich Shively, the executive director of Seattle Seafarers Center, a nonprofit operating on a mission to care for seafarers in Puget Sound.

The tugboat called Wycliffe had a working crew onboard. “Four crew members from Peru, Ecuador, Panama,” said Cyrus Donato with the International Transport Workers’ Federation.

The crew was supposed to tow two decommissioned Washington State Ferries to Ecuador, but their equipment malfunctioned, leaving a crew using work visas without a job. 

Immigration agents arrived this week and sent the crew home, according to Julia Cooper, the director of operations …