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A report by Temple law students and Juntos, a Philadelphia-based immigrant advocacy organization, documents testimonies describing “inhumane, punitive and dangerous conditions” at Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a privately-operated Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center located in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.
With a capacity of 1,876, the facility is the largest immigrant detention center in the Northeast. It was formerly a federal prison and re-opened as an ICE detention center in 2021. GEO Group, Inc., a private company, operates Moshannon and more than a dozen other ICE detention centers nationwide.
“It is a facility riddled with massive human rights violations,” said Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of Juntos. Núñez said people detained by ICE in Philadelphia are most often sent to Moshannon. Most recently, Philadelphia resident Sereyrath “One” Van, was sent to the center, according to advocates at VietLead.
ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jennifer Lee, left, law professor and supervisor of the report, speaks at a Sept. 4 press conference at Temple’s Law School. Lee and the co-authors of the report, along with community-based organization Juntos, announced the completion of a study finding “inhumane” conditions at Pennsylvania’s Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest ICE detention center in the Northeast. (Joe Piette/Juntos)
The report outlines three areas of abuse: physical and psychological mistreatment, barriers to justice — including lack of legal representation — and problems with health and well-being.
Santiago, an Afro-Latino immigrant from Colombia who was detained at Moshannon for six months, said at a press event Thursday that he was “treated like an animal” there, and that officers were “very racist.”
Santiago, who used an alias to protect his security, said he had “a small verbal argument” with a fellow detainee and was put in solitary confinement for two months.
“Two months they put me in the hole, locked up in a cell,” he said. “As if I were a criminal, as if I had murdered someone, when all I had done was argue with a fellow detainee. I felt very frustrated, I felt like I was going to go crazy in that place.”
He described a pattern of officials using solitary confinement to punish detainees for small infractions, and also alleged that the guards abused him physically.
“The truth is, Moshannon is a place where they don’t treat you like an immigrant, but as if you were a criminal,” Santiago said.
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Publish date : 2024-09-06 00:51:00
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