Civil liberties groups filed a complaint Wednesday with the Department of Homeland Security after hearing from frustrated and fearful people who are detained at an immigration processing center just outside of Centre County.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and two other organizations filed a 59-page complaint that details what they consider inhumane, unconstitutional and punitive conditions at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center.
“What is happening to people at Moshannon is not unique. In fact, it is illustrative of the experiences of many people in ICE detention across the country,” Vanessa Stine, senior staff attorney for immigrants’ rights at ACLU-PA , said in a statement. “ICE detention is unnecessary and cruel; there is no good reason to detain those awaiting their day in immigration court.”
It was not immediately clear if the Biden administration planned to launch an investigation into the organizations’ claims. A message left Thursday with DHS was not immediately returned. The complaint was addressed to Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, the DHS’ Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the director of Penn State’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, where she is listed as on leave.
A spokesperson for the GEO Group, which operates the private facility at the former Moshannon Valley Correctional Center, said the facility “meets or exceeds ICE’s rigorous standards, and it provides all the services required by ICE.”
“All GEO-contracted ICE Processing Centers are governed by Performance-Based National Detention Standards established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, that govern the conditions that must be provided to residents of contracted federal immigration facilities, including translation services and access to medical care,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “... Similarly, the facility’s staff are well-trained and held to a high standard of professional conduct. ICE staff are stationed at the Moshannon facility to ensure its standards are met.”
In fall 2021, the group entered into a five-year contract with Clearfield County to operate the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in the northeast. The ACLU-PA tried to block the opening at that time.
The ACLU’s complaint filed Wednesday included allegations that people detained there have experienced inadequate medical care, a lack of language access and discrimination from staff. Some people were identified in the complaint by pseudonyms due to fears of retaliation, the ACLU wrote.
One man who had surgery less than a month before being placed in custody said GEO medical staff and ICE denied him medical care, causing his leg to become “very painful and swollen.”
He reported feeling pain and discomfort daily. He said he neither was physically examined nor received follow-up care after his surgery.
“This whole experience left me feeling ignored and unheard,” one man said. “I feel like a bug trapped in a spider’s web that is too small for the spider to even eat. I am so frustrated and exhausted from being brushed to the side and I feel there is no way for me to get the care I need.”
Another man the ACLU cited in the report said he did not receive medical treatment for painful and spreading tumors, leaving him to wonder if they are cancerous.
“I could not believe how they could be so dismissive of my pain,” the man said.
Another man said it took about five months for a nurse to diagnose a fungal infection in his throat and mouth. Seeking follow-up care felt so futile, he said, that he stopped asking for help.
A third man told the ACLU he was coughing up and urinating blood for nearly four months before he was brought to an outside hospital. He said he attempted suicide due to severe depression.
“I continued to battle daily suicidal ideations until ICE released me,” the man said. “During those 6 months, I felt like the facility was trying to break my spirit.”
Women, the ACLU wrote, are especially vulnerable in a facility where they were outnumbered about 38 to one between January 2022 and April. Access to menstrual products is “extremely restricted” and preventative medical care is not accessible, the nonprofit wrote.
“Knowing that you have to be taken to an outside hospital in order to get care makes people less interested because they shackle you when they take you off site. Why would anyone want to go through that humiliation?” the woman said. “It deters us from seeking preventative or even emergency care. They will only take you to the hospital, or to see a proper doctor, when they determine that it is an emergency so most women, including myself, do not bother seeking care or complaining about it.”
The ACLU wrote the alleged issues at the facility are exacerbated by insufficient interpretation services for people who are not primary English speakers. In some cases, people are forced to rely on their peers to translate for them rather than a professional interpreter.
Conditions at the facility, the ACLU alleged in its complaint, have led to pervasive racial discrimination, especially for those who are Black and Asian.
Based in a community that is overwhelmingly white, the candidate pool for processing center employees has “very little racial or ethnic diversity,” the ACLU wrote.
“It is very isolating to be a woman detained here and even more isolating to be black,” one woman said. “The staff at Moshannon treat Black people differently. For example, the guards do not greet me when I greet them, or they ignore me altogether or act afraid of me by always avoiding eye contact.”
The complaint detailed at least three allegations of racially derogatory statements made by facility staff.
The ACLU said people who are white spend an average of 68 days in custody, while people who are Black are in custody more than twice as long on average — about 154 days. People who identify as Asian or Pacific Islanders spend an average of 113 days in custody.
“I wouldn’t wish on anyone what I went through at Moshannon because of the conditions there, the way I was treated, and the racism I experienced,” a man said in a statement. “Even though I am in ICE detention, I am a human being.”
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