ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Lehigh County officials have started the legal process of evicting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from a county-owned office space after the federal government went nearly three years without paying rent.

County sources say the Hamilton Street space has primarily been used by Homeland Security Investigations agents assisting in efforts to curb human trafficking throughout the Lehigh Valley.

But Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley and Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel focused much of their attention in a Tuesday news conference on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. While HSI is a part of ICE, it is not involved in the deportation or removal of people illegally in the country.

The two Democrats referred to the unrest across the country as masked ICE agents armed with long guns have confronted people on the street or in their homes in cities across America. Many of these confrontations have ended with American citizens being detained or, in a high-profile case out of Minneapolis earlier this month, the death of an American woman.

The county has an obligation not to work with the department or its agencies to avoid being complicit in its actions, Siegel and Pinsley said.

“We can give them a taste of their own medicine. We’re going to deport ICE,” Pinsley said at the afternoon press gathering.

“To move them out of this area on an incorrect perception that they’re doing the same things ICE is doing makes the decision even dumber.”

Gavin Holihan, Lehigh County district attorney

In an interview minutes later, Siegel said he would not consider allowing DHS to remain in their Hamilton Financial Center office even if they agreed to pay the back rent owed the county and signed a new lease.

“I think it’s blood money,” Siegel said. “I am not going to take $115,000 from ICE or DHS so that they can reserve space in the county and use that space to terrorize our public or, frankly, to create the perception or appearance that they’re here to terrorize the public.”

Efforts to reach the Department of Homeland Security for comment were not immediately successful.

But Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said the county offices have not been used to round up or deport people at any point since the county and federal government reached a memorandum of understanding in 2022.

While ICE and HSI are often conflated, the federal agents working in the county office space are not involved in immigration or using the space as a detainment center. Before learning that Siegel had started the eviction process, Holihan said, he was willing to pay the federal government’s back rent with drug forfeiture money to continue the partnership.

“Local law enforcement doesn’t have the resources to do what DHS does to fight human trafficking,” Holihan said. “To move them out of this area on an incorrect perception that they’re doing the same things ICE is doing makes the decision even dumber.”

‘Fell through the cracks’

Lehigh County commissioners approved a memorandum of understanding in May 2022 to rent the unused Hamilton Financial Center space to the Department of Homeland Security.

But a formal contract with the county never emerged even after the 10-month agreement expired.

Former Lehigh County Executive Philips Armstrong, Siegel’s acting director of administration, said he was aware that the contract had expired but his administration had continued good-faith negotiations with the federal government to secure the rent. The situation was complicated because a federal employee signed a contract they were not authorized to approve.

“Records will be kept. Injustices noted. Specific agents’ names remembered. And one day, people who treated people unlawfully will be held accountable.”

Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley

However, the issue never reached Pinsley because there was never a formal contract for the controller’s office to review, he said. He learned of the situation earlier this month after receiving a tip as the new Siegel administration — Siegel was elected in November and took over as county executive earlier this month — transitioned into office.

Siegel said the situation fell through the cracks of the county’s Department of General Services.

Pinsley, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, said he had an obligation to alert the community about the overdue funds.

He issued a report to the Siegel administration and called on it to evict the federal government and begin the legal process of getting the overdue rent, which he said amounts to about $115,000.

Throughout the news conference, Pinsley equated DHS with ICE. He said his report to the Siegel administration also recommended the county create a database that would “allow citizens to report misdeeds of ICE.”

“Records will be kept. Injustices noted. Specific agents’ names remembered. And one day, people who treated people unlawfully will be held accountable,” Pinsley said.

The role of county controller is traditionally viewed as a financial watchdog, an elected official tasked with ensuring that taxpayer money is not being wasted or mismanaged. Similarly, they often review county processes to ensure best practices are being kept.

Pinsley, however, has often bristled against those constraints, arguing that his job calls on him to opine on the policies set by county executives, commissioners and judges as well as the finances and practices.

“My feeling is that my job is to bring visibility to what’s going on in the county, and I have always been for the people and not the powerful, and that’s what I’m doing here today,” he said.

But Holihan, a Republican who won the Democratic nomination in 2023, and U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh Valley and Pinsley’s potential opponent in the November election, both accused him of putting politics over public safety.

In a prepared statement Tuesday, Mackenzie criticized Pinsley for failing to negotiate with Homeland Security in good faith when they have been fighting heinous crimes such as human trafficking.

“Law enforcement and the people of the Lehigh Valley deserve better than politically motivated stunts from self-interested extremists,” Mackenzie said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Pinsley shifted his rhetoric when reporters asked him how he would respond when his critics would accuse him of using his office to play politics.

“At the end of the day, they didn’t pay their bills, so they can say whatever they want. They very clearly haven’t paid their bills in three years,” Pinsley said.

Siegel, who previously served four years as a state representative, made resisting the Trump administration a key platform of his county campaign last year. He routinely criticized his Republican opponent Roger MacLean for his support of President Donald Trump and said that local governments needed to be more vocal in pushing back against what he described as unconstitutional and immoral actions.

“The way that DHS is conducting itself now, the way the department is being led by Director Kristi Noem, presents far more risks than rewards. The Lehigh Valley hasn’t been immune to deportation raids,” Siegel said, referring to a 2025 bust in South Bethlehem. “I’m simply saying the county has a moral obligation, in this environment, to make a stand and say we will not be a party to this administration’s or this DHS’s conduct in any way whatsoever.”

Holihan drew a censure from the Lehigh County Republican Committee last year for endorsing Siegel over MacLean, a former Allentown police chief. Holihan defended his decision at the time, saying that Siegel was one of the few state lawmakers who sought his opinion and worked with him, such as an effort to ban machine gun conversion devices, also known as Glock switches.

While Holihan sharply disagreed with Siegel’s decision to evict DHS from the county office, he said he did not regret his decision to endorse him last year.

“Endorsing someone doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with them 100% of the time,” Holihan said.