The Department of Homeland Security’s rumored plan to sell the warehouse in Upper Bern Township is good news, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement remains deeply embedded in Berks County.
With an additional $38 billion to spend, ICE continues to snatch our friends and neighbors through compliance traps, collateral arrests and directly from Berks County Jail. To date, the jail has handed 96 people to ICE, known for wanton disregard for due process and the rule of law.
It does this with the collaboration of our county commissioners and prison board, who dismiss the more than 50 deaths in ICE custody since January 2025.They ignore the experience of officials at every level who are refused access to detention centers within their jurisdiction. ”We shouldn’t be in the middle of this,” Clearfield County Commissioner Dave Glass said when denied his legal right to inspect Moshannon Detention Center.
Even without a local prison camp, Berks is very much in the middle of all this. The people Berks handed to ICE may have been sent to Moshannon, or Louisiana or Texas or New Jersey — who knows? We do know ICE is rapidly expanding its collaboration with local authorities.
The relationship between ICE and local governments is starkly divided between those who collaborate with ICE and those who do not. Our commissioners and prison board members must join those who do not and end the voluntary ICE detainer holds at the Berks jail. No detention beyond an inmate’s release date without a judicial warrant.
Jane Palmer
Wyomissing