An Eye-Opening Trip to the Local ICE Processing Center
14th July 2023
I recently had an astonishing trip to the former correctional center in my town that entered into a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to become a processing center right after President Biden took office and issued an executive order cracking down on private prisons.
The processing center is a big job creator in this rural place — and the people employed there, by all accounts I’ve heard and witnessed, are dedicated, hard workers. Yet what their jobs entail is astonishing. At a community outreach luncheon, I learned that as blue states refuse to allow ICE facilities to operate, central Pennsylvania has become a “hub” of the northeast for detainees. We receive immigrants from Maryland, New York, New Jersey and occasionally Ohio. What really struck me was all the running around the local employees must do to transfer “residents,” as they’re called, to and from other facilities, courts and for “special duties,” including consulate details, medical transports, funeral services and United States Marshall Services, and how poorly the detainees are accounted for after they’re released.