Two Pa. Democrats become first members of Congress to access Pennsylvania’s largest ICE detention facility

CLEARFIELD COUNTY, Pa. — As tensions escalate over the conditions facing undocumented immigrants in federal detention centers, a pair of Pittsburgh-area Democrats on Thursday became the first members of Congress to gain access to the largest such facility in the Northeast — the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in rural Clearfield County.

U.S. Reps. Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio, after emerging from a nearly two-hour guided tour, said they heard “real concerns” from detainees but were unable to conduct the level of oversight they wanted when their interpreters were stopped at the door.

With one detained woman volunteering to translate, Lee said, they were able to listen as women in particular came forward to raise issues with the center’s food and medical care, including for women who are pregnant or recently had medical procedures.

“I think they saw this as their opportunity, and at least felt some level of comfort, that there were two members of Congress here, finally, that were able to document [their concerns],” said Lee, who had been prevented from entering the facility nine months ago.

The congressional oversight visit followed similar moves this week by some of New Jersey’s federal lawmakers — including Democratic U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim — at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark.

Kim’s visit on Memorial Day, amid a tense standoff between protesters and immigration enforcement agents, became part of a chaotic scene where the senator said he was pepper-sprayed. Booker said that his time in the facility on Wednesday was “chilling” and that he was calling on it to be shut down.

Immigrant advocates and lawmakers have also called for the closure of Moshannon Valley, which is 30 miles northwest of State College and has the capacity for about 1,900 detainees.

Built in 2004, the facility has long faced scrutiny and allegations of abuse. A federal investigation into excessive force and abuse by guards, as well as inadequate medical and mental healthcare, was closed after President Donald Trump took office. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the DHS internal watchdog, was also dismantled.

Lee and U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Delaware County Democrat, were turned away in August when they tried to enter the facility for an oversight visit. They said at the time that they were seeking information about “inhumane conditions” and inadequate medical care following the death of Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese national who authorities said died by suicide.

Since then, another detainee — Eritrean citizen Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir — also died after being in custody for 215 days. Other reports of poor medical care have coincided with a hunger strike that detainees began last month to protest the conditions.

Lee and Deluzio said their tour Thursday was limited because their visit was unannounced. Under a Trump administration rule, members of Congress can enter the facility unannounced but interpreters and other staff must receive prior approval.

With imperfect translation, Lee said, they spoke to pregnant women who said they were not receiving adequate prenatal care and one woman who said she had been sexually assaulted at the center. Deluzio said he saw a lunch of chicken, rice, and beans being served, though it did little to assuage larger concerns about meals.

“Much of what we heard from leadership here sounded positive, and yet we heard real complaints, especially from the women who were willing to speak,” Deluzio said in front of a roadside billboard near the facility that criticizes the detention of children.

Deluzio said he was struck by the information they received that showed a “large majority” of detainees had not been charged with violent crimes, which is Trump and his allies’ frequent argument for increased enforcement and detention.

“They’ve not been charged with things like robbery, or burglary, or rape, or murder. And yet that’s who’s in this facility,” Deluzio said. “So what that shows us, I think, is that Donald Trump’s mass deportation regime is showing up right here in Pennsylvania”

The renewed opposition comes as the Clearfield County commissioners prepare to vote in September on whether to renew their contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the GEO Group, the private prison operator that runs both Moshannon Valley and Delaney Hall. The contract brings the county $200,000 a year, according to the Progress news organization in Clearfield.

Asked about that forthcoming decision, Deluzio did not say the facility should be shut down but spoke of a broader effort to reform immigration enforcement.

“This is a cog in that machine,” Deluzio said. “So it is a much bigger fight, I think, for us in the Congress.”

Lee, who has been the most vocal in Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation in calling for the abolishment of ICE, said it should be shut down.

“We need to have a complete reformation of how we do homeland security — but especially how we do immigration, how we are detaining human beings, the ways in which these folks are being processed, the ways in which these folks are being treated, hunted down in the streets,” Lee said.

Both lawmakers also acknowledged the limitations of their own ability to address the concerns they heard.

“Some were rushing trying to get us information, telling us where they’re from, giving us names of their legal representation,” Lee said. “These women, these people, are coming from all over the country. Some of them have been transferred to various facilities before they got here. Some have left and come back. So it is really complex to even track how we would be able to do any sort of advocacy for some of these folks.”

GEO Group referred questions to ICE, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pennsylvania is home to four other centers, including one in Philadelphia.

Nationally, the number of people held in immigration detention has reached record numbers this year, topping 70,700 in January before dropping to just over 60,300 in April. Part of that decline may be due to faster deportations.

More than 12,000 people were placed in detention in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware in the nine months after Trump took office in January 2025. That is nearly three times the number of detentions during the last nine months of former President Joe Biden’s administration, according to an Inquirer analysis of ICE data.

Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.