{"id":116644,"date":"2026-02-18T01:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116644\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:35:09","slug":"shutdown-may-delay-answers-about-planned-ice-facility-in-berks-county-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/116644\/","title":{"rendered":"Shutdown may delay answers about planned ICE facility in Berks County | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was produced by\u00a0the Berks County bureau of Spotlight PA<\/a>, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom. Sign up for Good Day, Berks, a daily dose of essential local stories at\u00a0spotlightpa.org\/newsletters\/gooddayberks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update: Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach said Tuesday evening there\u2019s no meeting planned for Feb. 18. He said he spoke with Rep. Dan Meuser (R., Pa.) who said he would still work with DHS to plan the meeting for another day.<\/p>\n

The partial federal government shutdown may impact how quickly Berks County officials receive more information about the planned\u00a0ICE processing facility<\/a>\u00a0in Upper Bern Township, Commissioner Christian Leinbach told Spotlight PA on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Leinbach said he spoke with U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R., Pa.) and a representative of the Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 13. They said they would schedule a meeting for local elected officials, including the county commissioners and Upper Bern supervisors, to ask questions about the federal plan for the\u00a0recently purchased warehouse at 3501 Mountain Road<\/a>. Officials from Schuylkill County, where DHS has planned a detention center, will also be invited, Leinbach said.<\/p>\n

They told Leinbach they had hoped to hold the meeting as soon as Feb. 18, he said, but added that it could be delayed by the shutdown, which as of Tuesday affected all departments under DHS, including ICE.<\/p>\n

The shutdown\u00a0does not seem likely<\/a>\u00a0to quickly end, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

>>READ MORE:\u00a0Everything you need to know about ICE\u2019s plan to open a detention center in Berks County<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotlight PA reached out to Upper Bern Township Solicitor Andrew Hoffman and Meuser\u2019s office to ask about the date of the meeting, but did not immediately receive a response.<\/p>\n

Leinbach said he hoped the federal representatives would hold a public meeting for residents after the private conversation with elected officials. He will inform residents of what he learns, if he\u2019s not prevented from doing so for security reasons, after the meeting, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a normal process, not just with ICE, anyone,\u201d Leinbach said of holding the private meeting before a public one. \u201cYou want to be able to ask very detailed questions \u2026 maybe be harsher than you might be in public, maybe be less formal than you would be in public. So I think that’s why that’s necessary as a first step.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story may be updated.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026\u00a0If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at\u00a0spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by\u00a0foundations and readers like you<\/a>\u00a0who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was produced by\u00a0the Berks County bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom. Sign up for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-116644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116644","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=116644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}