U. BERN TWP., Pa. \u2013 As tensions grow across the nation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has purchased a nearly 520,000-square-foot warehouse in Upper Bern Township \u2014 one of dozens of facilities purchased across the country expected to be converted into immigration detention centers.<\/p>\n
The warehouse located on Mountain Road, about a mile from Interstate 78, could house up to 1,500 beds.<\/p>\n
Democratic U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan \u2014 who represents Chester County and southeastern Berks County \u2014 expressed deep concern.<\/p>\n
“Spending more than $87 million of taxpayer money on a single facility in Berks County is not just a questionable use of resources; it reflects a set of priorities that don’t align with our values or our real community needs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Republican state Rep. Jamie Barton (124th District) and Sen. Chris Gebhard (48th District) say they contacted federal officials to clarify how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to use the facility and when it could become operational. In a joint statement, they said:<\/p>\n
“Our immediate concerns include the potential loss of property tax revenue for the host municipality, county, and school district, as well as security and perimeter considerations.”<\/p>\n
Upper Bern Township and Berks County officials said in statements that they were not involved in this transfer and have not received any applications regarding the future use of the property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U. BERN TWP., Pa. \u2013 As tensions grow across the nation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has purchased…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,2443,50471,128,130,129,12264,20354],"class_list":{"0":"post-104616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-ice","10":"tag-immigration-detention","11":"tag-reading-city","12":"tag-reading-city-headlines","13":"tag-reading-city-news","14":"tag-upper-bern-township","15":"tag-warehouse"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}