Clearfield County will make $1M in 5-year contracts with ICE, Moshannon detention center operator; Spotlight PA, October 7, 2025

 

Ann Rejrat for Spotlight PA State College , Spotlight PA; Clearfield County will make $1M in 5-year contracts with ICE, Moshannon detention center operator

[Kip Currier: Following the conclusion of the 115th Annual Convention of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Episcopal Diocese, today I accompanied several Episcopal priests, a deacon, and a lay member for a prayer vigil where peaceful protests against the largest immigrant detention facility in the Northeast have been held for much of this year. The detention site is located near Clearfield County's small town of Philipsburg (a 30-40 minute drive from the main campus of Pennsylvania State University). Euphemistically referred to as the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, its blandly generic name -- and sign, seen below --  intentionally obscures its purpose and the individual people it holds. Numerous allegations of human rights and due process violations have been reported.]

[Excerpt]

"Clearfield County will make $1 million over five years to act as the middleman between ICE and the private contractor that operates the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest immigration detention facility in the Northeast.

The county enters the final year of its contracts with ICE and the GEO Group as the Trump administration has intensified efforts to deport undocumented immigrants.

Moshannon — which had already been accused of physical and psychological abuse, inadequate health care, and poor conditions — has also come under increased scrutiny over the past several months after the hanging death of Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese citizen who was detained at the facility near Philipsburg.

Local advocates have protested, called for Moshannon’s closure, and pressured county commissioners not to renew the contracts for the detention center."

Prison Architecture and the Question of Ethics; New York Times, 2/16/15

Michael Kimmelman, New York Times; Prison Architecture and the Question of Ethics:

"Faced with lawsuits and a growing mountain of damning research, New York City officials decided last month to ban solitary confinement for prison inmates 21 and younger. Just a few weeks earlier, the American Institute of Architects rejected a petition to censure members who design solitary-confinement cells and death chambers.

“It’s just not something we want to determine as a collective,” Helene Combs Dreiling, the institute’s former president, told me. She said she put together a special panel that reviewed the plea. “Members with deeply embedded beliefs will avoid designing those building types and leave it to their colleagues,” Ms. Dreiling elaborated. “Architects self-select, depending on where they feel they can contribute best.”

What are the ethical boundaries for architecture? Architecture is one of the learned professions, like medicine or law. It requires a license, giving architects a monopoly over their practices, in return for a minimal promise that buildings won’t fall down."