The federal government will drop plans to use warehouses in Schuylkill and Berks counties and five other locations as immigrant detention centers, the New York Times reported Thursday evening.
The newspaper cited a document it obtained.
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Luzerne, said Friday he has not received “definitive word” that Immigration and Customs Enforcement won’t develop the centers.
“But I will receive definitive word, I believe shortly,” Meuser said in a text.
In January, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, paid $119.5 million for a 1.3-million-feet former Big Lots warehouse on Rausch Creek Road in Tremont Twp. ICE planned to house up to 7,500 detainees there as part of a nationwide plan to expand its detention capacity.
The department also paid $87.4 million for a 520,000-square-foot warehouse on Mountain Road in Upper Bern Twp. That was meant as a processing center housing up to 1,500 detainees.
The idea was meant to supercharge President Trump’s mass deportation plan, the Times reported.
The department paid more than $700 million for the seven centers it plans to sell, the newspaper reported. It paid $1 billion for 11 facilities and plans to keep four.
“From Day 1, D.H.S. has remained singularly focused on removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from the United States and is always evaluating the best methods to do so,” the Department of Homeland Security told the Times for its story. “These heinous criminals, once arrested, should be removed at lightning speed, not housed on American soil at the taxpayer’s expense. D.H.S. is moving swiftly to utilize EXISTING detention space with our state and county partners.”
ICE plans to sell the seven buildings or give them to other agencies to use, the Times reported.
The other warehouses ICE plans to hand off or sell are in Romulus, Mich.; Social Circle and Flowery Branch, Ga.; Salt Lake City; and Roxbury, N.J.
The Pennsylvania plans and others met with sharp opposition from residents and concern from county officials. Opponents worried about the humanity of warehousing thousands of immigrants.
“I was brought up and taught that we have to love everybody, and it doesn't matter your skin color, where you're from,” Schuylkill County residents Jennifer Devine told WVIA News in a May story. “(It’s about) kindness and love, just to help people ... They're being treated like animals, not even like human beings.”
In Schuylkill County, opponents, Meuser and county officials also showed concern about the warehouses using up local water and overwhelming existing sewage and policing systems and wiping out almost $1 million in property tax revenues for local governments.
Meuser negotiated an agreement meant to allay some of the fears, but Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration went a step further.
The state Department of Environmental Protection issued letters asking Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to prove the centers can meet state and federal drinking water quality, clean streams and sewage treatment standards. Dissatisfied, the agencies instead asked for more time, but the DEP issued orders demanding proof.
DHS responded by arguing DEP’s orders are unreasonable, premature, too broad, abuse the agency’s regulatory discretion and interfere with enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws. The department approved to the state Environmental Hearing Board where the case remains pending.
