Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest immigration detention facility in the northeastern United States, passed a federal inspection with flying colors earlier this year.
The check performed in early March considered the Clearfield County facility’s safety and security, management, food service, medical care and legal resources for detainees. And officials found it met all 28 standards that were part of the audit.
Overall, inspectors from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave the private, for-profit facility a “superior” rating.
‘Atrocious:’ Lawyers, family and friends of detainees describe ICE detention
Sarah Paoletti, a University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor who has studied conditions at the center, says she is “exceptionally skeptical” of the results, calling them “entirely self-serving.” But she’s not confident that a more extensive civil rights review launched in 2024 will ever see the light of day.
Though Moshannon Valley Processing Center has only functioned as an immigrant detention facility for a few years, it has drawn numerous complaints about mistreatment and rampant discrimination against detainees. Advocates have raised alarm about an acute lack of language services, denial of adequate medical treatment or mental health care and an “oppressive environment” that more closely resembles a prison than a temporary holding center.
Allegations against Moshannon were serious and plentiful enough that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2024 launched a broad investigation into the facility. In a memo, the agency’s civil rights and civil liberties office reported receiving 88 complaints about the facility from October 2023 to August 2024, including a 59-page memo prepared by Paoletti and the ACLU of Pennsylvania claiming “egregious and unconstitutional conditions” at the facility.
“After reviewing these allegations, CRCL decided to conduct a multidisciplinary onsite investigation at Moshannon,” the civil rights investigators wrote in a memo to ICE officials.
During a call around the time of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Paoletti said CRCL representatives explained they had drafted a report summarizing their findings and recommendations from the Moshannon investigation and had submitted it to ICE for review.
Protesters hold up signs as they gather to demonstrate against federal immigration operations at Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles, on June 11.
But she has no idea where the report stands now. And with the Trump administration eviscerating the Department of Homeland Security’s oversight office earlier this year, she’s not confident investigation’s findings will ever come to light.
Meanwhile, Trump’s immigration crackdown has funneled more and more people into Moshannon. The roughly 1,880-bed facility averaged a daily population of about 1,444 during the final couple weeks of May, an increase of more than 250 since Trump took office, according to estimates based on ICE detention statistics.
Paoletti says one of her clients, who is being held at the facility, and other lawyers working with detainees report conditions have only deteriorated in recent months.
The Department of Homeland Security did not answer an email asking about the status of the CRCL investigation. And the GEO Group, the publicly traded company that runs Moshannon, did not respond to a request for comment.
More: ICE denies oversight of crowded detention facilities, lawmakers say
Inspections at the ICE detention center
While the CRCL and ICE each exist inside Homeland Security, the civil rights office is not part of immigration and customs enforcement. On the other hand, the inspectors who carried out the onsite check at Moshannon earlier this year were from ICE’s office of professional responsibility and fulfilling a congressional mandate to assess compliance with the agency’s detention standards.
According to the inspection, they interviewed 41 people being held at the center, all of whom reportedly said they were satisfied with services at the facility and raised no complaints of abuse or discrimination. Another 13 people declined to speak with inspectors.
Paoletti said she’s not surprised by that, given the fear of retribution that many detainees have expressed to her and other advocates.
More: Trump’s expanded ICE raids are causing big problems for some schools
Immigration advocates have criticized these government inspections as of little use, saying they generally identify few defects and don’t line up with the firsthand accounts from people detained there.
Still, online ICE records indicate that Moshannon’s most recent inspection was its only perfect check since it opened as an immigration holding center in 2021. The previous review, conducted in 2024, found a couple deficiencies related to custody classification and ensuring that each person gets assigned to the proper unit.
Another report marked the facility down for excessive use of force, mentioning one situation in which a staff member put a detainee in a chokehold. Inspectors also documented lapses in suicide watch checks and gaps in following medical protocol.
Advocates have reported other issues at the center, including a lack of interpretation services, especially for people who speak rarer languages. They’ve also described inadequate health care and disability accommodations and “pervasive” racial discrimination at the facility, with reported examples of staff members making derogatory comments and treating detainees differently based on their race.
The ACLU of Pennsylvania, Legal Services of New Jersey and Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School argued that these alleged deficiencies violate the constitutional guarantees of due process.
But Paoletti said that, for most migrants, fixing the living conditions at Moshannon is not a primary focus. They just want to get out.
What’s the background of Moshannon Valley Processing Center?
Moshannon Valley Processing Center, situated on the Philipsburg outskirts, served as a privately-run federal prison until 2021, when it closed and reopened several months later as an ICE detention facility. But it shouldn’t operate like a jail, Paoletti said.
Unlike prisons, she said, processing centers are not supposed to be punitive, since many of the people there have no criminal background and are accused only of civil immigration infractions. Detention shouldn’t be used as a deterrent to illegal immigration, she explained.
But while the facility staff refer to detainees as “residents,” people at Moshannon have described feeling like prisoners, she said.
Surveillance cameras and razor wire sit atop of fencing at Delaney Hall, a 1,000-person detention center operated by private prison company GEO Group for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey.
No-climb fencing encloses the center, and people who arrive are assigned to wear jumpsuits in a color that corresponds to their security threat level, which is determined by staff, according to a report prepared in 2024 by students at Temple University Beasley School of Law.
Paoletti said people do not have freedom of movement inside the facility, and even lawyers can’t walk around without an escort. While many jails and prisons offer educational programs and constructive activities, she said, the detainees at Moshannon have few options for passing the time.
The GEO Group began as a private prison operator but expanded into immigrant detention and has become ICE’s largest contractor, running about 20 migrant holding facilities across the U.S., according to the ACLU. ICE has agreed to pay the GEO Group a flat monthly fee of $2.86 million for running Moshannon, plus an additional sum for each person staying there.
The Temple University report estimated the contractor is collecting more than $3.4 million each month, assuming that on any given day about 1,200 people are detained at Moshannon.
The facility population has far surpassed that level, though, especially amid Trump’s aggressive campaign to find and deport undocumented migrants.
This past week, ICE agents descended on a fire-damaged apartment building in Bethlehem and arrested 17 workers from a construction crew that was helping to repair the structure. The agency also recently raided a Thai restaurant in Pittsburgh, and CBS News reports that Trump wants to send ICE tactical teams to Philadelphia.
In a May earnings call, GEO Group’s CEO, David Donahue, said the company is looking at an “unprecedented opportunity” to help the federal government ramp up its immigration enforcement efforts.
He assured investors the company has already taken steps “in anticipation of what we expect to be significant future growth opportunities.”
Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania investigative journalist.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: What are conditions inside PA’s ICE detention center?