Outraged immigrant advocacy groups called for an immediate closure and release of all detainees at the for-profit western Pennsylvania Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg after a Chinese immigrant was found dead hanging in the shower room as a result of apparent suicide.
MVPC staff discovered Chaofeng Ge, a 32-year-old citizen of China, on Tuesday morning. According to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement press release, “He had been in ICE custody for five days and was awaiting a hearing before the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.”
“The reason we are here is to demand the Clearfield County Commissioners shut down Moshannon by ending the contract with ICE and GEO. That is the only way these deaths will stop,” said Adrianna Torres-Garcia during the virtual press event Thursday hosted by the Shut Down Detention Coalition. Torres-Garcia is deputy director of the Free Migration Project in Philadelphia. The coalition is urging Clearfield County Commissioners to end the contract with the prison notorious for inhumane conditions and human rights violations.
In fact, The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Legal Services of New Jersey, and the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School filed a federal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in June 2024 alleging “that people held in the processing center endure unconstitutional, punitive, and harmful conditions … [that] include inadequate medical care, a lack of language access, and an environment where those detained at the center are discriminated against by staff.”
Private prison corporation GEO Group operates the Moshannon Valley facility and is a partner of Clearfield County and ICE. Capacity at the facility is nearly 1,900.
“Moshannon Valley Processing Center has a well-documented history of medical neglect, language isolation, psychological abuse, and solitary confinement,” said Zeynep Emanet, civic engagement field coordinator at CAIR Philadelphia. “Moshannon represents the worst of a system that treats migrants not as human beings, but as revenue streams.”
Setareh Ghandehari is the advocacy director at Detention Watch Network (DWN) a national coalition-building group working to abolish immigration detention in the United States. She said the Trump Administration’s “one big beautiful bill” increased the ICE budget nearly 15 times over what was provided for operations before he took office in January.
“Since the start of the Trump Administration there has been at least 13 deaths in custody, which is very likely an under estimate given ICE’s lack of transparency and reporting,” Ghandehari said. “Over the last six months there have been increasing reports of death, medical neglect, overcrowding, lack of food and rampant transfers that cut people off from their loved ones and support networks, including access to legal counsel,” she said.
According to Ghandehari, the latest reconciliation bill passed by Congress would provide the administration with “unprecedented resources. The bill provides a shocking $150 billion for targeting, detention and deportation of people.”
The amount includes $45 billion for ICE to detain families and adults, Ghandehari explained, and she noted ICE’s most recent budget was about $3 billion.
“And now they have access to about 15 times that amount, all at once … ICE’s budget now exceeds many military budgets around the world, while our hospitals and schools remain underfunded,” Ghandehari said.
She also noted that GEO Group reported annual revenue of about $145 million for two of its several currently operating facilities alone.
Moshannan is not the only detention center in the region, but according to Torres-Garcia it is currently the largest one operating on the East Coast.
In addition to the demand to close Moshannon and other detention facilities aligned with ICE, CAIR’s Emanet said advocacy groups are also calling for the ending of local ICE 287(g) partnerships.
Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran is currently being sued, along with Bucks County, by the ACLU Pennsylvania for entering a ICE 287(g) agreement without the required consent of county commissioners.
