PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Immigration advocates want a central Pennsylvania county to end its contract with ICE after a detainee was found dead in a processing center earlier this week.
Chaofeng Ge, a 32-year-old Chinese immigrant at Moshannon Valley Processing Center, was declared dead Tuesday morning shortly after he was found hanging by his neck in his shower, according to ICE. The cause of death is under investigation.
“Detention as a system is cruel and unnecessary. It’s a system built to profit off of human suffering. And it doesn’t keep our communities safe; it tears them apart,” said Erika Guadalupe Nunez, executive director of immigrant rights organization Juntos.
She says detainees, like Santiago, an Afro-Latino immigrant held at Moshannon, are subjected to conditions that erode their mental health.
“They treated me like an animal,” Nunez said, translating Santiago's testimony, talking about solitary confinement as punishment. “There came a time when I had a small verbal argument with a fellow detainee in Moshannon. They took us both and put us in the hole. Two months, they put me in the hole.”
Ge is not the only detainee who has died in the processing center. Cameroonian Citizen Frankline Okpu died at Moshannon Valley in 2023.
Immigration advocates are urging Clearfield County commissioners to end their contract with ICE and shut down the largest detention center in the northeast, with a capacity of 1,876.
In a statement, ICE said detainees are provided comprehensive medical care and 24-hour emergency care.