Brother of Chinese immigrant found dead at a Pennsylvania ICE detention facility sues for answers

The brother of a Chinese immigrant who was found dead this summer at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a large and remote privately run U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Pennsylvania, has filed a lawsuit against immigration authorities to demand answers about the death.

Chaofeng Ge, 32, was found dead in a shower stall at the detention center in Clearfield County on Aug. 5.

“No one from the GEO Group, which runs MVPC, has reached out and offered the family condolences, much less an explanation for how this could have happened,” says the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York by Ge’s brother, Yangeng Ge.

In pursuit of answers, the brother filed a Freedom of Information Act request in September, which, the suit says, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE unlawfully ignored.

The lawsuit asks that a federal judge order the agencies to comply with the FOIA request and release all information and records surrounding Ge’s treatment at Moshannon and his death.

Chaofeng Ge, a New York City resident, was taken to Moshannon on July 31 after pleading guilty to state charges related to credit card fraud.

“Mr. Ge was isolated because no one in the facility could speak Mandarin. MVPC staff refused to even try to communicate with him, much less offer him the mental healthcare that he so urgently needed,” the complaint says.

DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that all in custody deaths are tragic and throughly investigated.

“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously,” McLaughlin said.

» READ MORE: Inside Pa.’s largest immigrant detention center: Violence, desperation, little oversight

Ge was found unresponsive at 5:21 a.m. in the shower room of his detention stall, according to an ICE detainee death report. He was pronounced dead shortly after 6 a.m. The lawsuit says that he was hanging from his neck as his legs and hands were tied behind his back.

Ge’s death was ruled a suicide, according to Clearfield County corner, Kim Shaffer-Snyder.

The Chinese national was arrested by Border Patrol in November 2023 in California for having entered the United States illegally, according to ICE records. He was issued a notice to appear in immigration court and released.

In January, Ge was arrested by Lower Paxton Township police for attempting to buy gift cards at a CVS store in Harrisburg with fraudulent credit cards. He pleaded guilty in July to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to six to 12 months in prison, court records show.

Following the plea, ICE took him into custody and transferred him to Moshannon in Phillipsburg. Five days later he was found dead.

ICE was required to respond to the FOIA request by Oct. 15, the suit says. Multiple federal government agencies note on their websites that the shutdown, which began Oct. 1, may cause delays in processing requests.

Fifteen people have died in ICE detention since President Donald Trump took office in January, according to agency records.

Moshannon is the largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in the Northeast, with capacity to hold nearly 1,900 people.

Concerns over the conditions at Moshannon predate the Trump administration. But as the White House has ramped up deportations, and after DHS dismantled its internal watchdog, immigration activists have been pressing Clearfield County to cancel its contract with ICE. And lawmakers have been denied entry to the facility in their effort to investigate claims of poor conditions.

“Does anyone know what’s going on inside?” Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, told The Inquirer in September. “The answer is, unfortunately, no.”

This story was updated to include comment from DHS and the Clearfield County coroner that was shared after publication.