Shapiro blasts Trump for racist video of the Obamas and ICE’s ‘secretive’ warehouse purchase in Berks County
Shapiro said Pennsylvania is exploring legal options to block ICE from using a warehouse to detain immigrants in Berks County.
Gov. Josh Shapiro blasted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Friday for buying a Berks County warehouse that may be used to detain people.
“I’m strongly opposed to the purchase,” Shapiro said after speaking at an event at the Steamfitters Local 420 in Northeast Philadelphia.
Shapiro said the facility is “not what we need anywhere in Pennsylvania,” adding that he was not alerted ahead of time of ICE’s $87 million acquisition of the warehouse on 64 acres in Upper Bern Township.
“The secretive way the federal government went about this undermines trust,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro has grown increasingly vocal in his criticism of ICE and President Donald Trump in recent weeks as he’s toured the East Coast promoting his new memoir. In addition to voicing his opposition to the warehouse, Shapiro criticized Trump for sharing a racist video attacking former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama.
The Democratic governor, who is widely seen as a contender for the White House in 2028, is in the midst of a reelection campaign against Trump-endorsed Republican Stacy Garrity, who has urged cooperation with ICE.
He said the commonwealth is exploring “what legal options we may have to stop” the ICE procurement, but he acknowledged “those options are very slim, given that the federal government is the purchaser.”
Shapiro told this audience of union workers and apprentices that the Berks County building would be better used for economic development.
At the same event, Shapiro announced a new $3 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant to expand the Steamfitters Local Union 420 Training Center, which he said would help “train the next generation of workers.”
Shapiro criticizes Trump over racist anti-Obama video
During the union hall event, Shapiro also leveled criticism at the Trump administration for sharing on social media a racist video depicting Obama, the first Black president, and his wife, as apes.
When asked for a reaction, Shapiro said, “I actually agree with [Republican] Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina that it’s racist.”
Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, called the video “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House," after Trump shared it to his Truth Social account Thursday evening.
Shapiro said that Trump “seems to always find a lower and lower common denominator. We’re not going to get sucked down into the depths that this president seems to reach for each day.”
Trump took down the video early Friday afternoon.
The governor also strongly chided Trump for recently saying the federal government should be in charge of elections.
Specifically, Trump named Philadelphia, along with Detroit and Atlanta, as cities where the federal government should step in to run elections. The predominantly Black cities are in swing states and have long been targeted with Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
“The president of the United States doesn’t run our elections,” said Shapiro. “County officials run our elections, Republican and Democrat alike.”
“We’re not going to have interference from the White House,” added the governor, who served as attorney general when Trump tried to overturn Pennsylvania’s election results in 2020.