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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has formally reversed its plans to establish two ICE detention centers in Pennsylvania that were intended to hold up to 9,000 immigrants, Gov. Josh Shapiro said Wednesday.
The decision, which comes amid opposition from the state and from local communities, marks the end of efforts to convert warehouses in Berks and Schuylkill Counties, as the Trump administration works to offload some sites that were intended to support its mass-deportation agenda.
Shapiro, a first-term Democrat seeking reelection this year, told DHS officials in February he would “aggressively pursue every option to prevent these facilities from opening,” and his administration later denied permits to update local water and sewage systems to handle thousands of additional people.
On Wednesday, Shapiro praised the federal decision and credited his administration’s work to block the facilities.
“From the beginning, I’ve been clear that these warehouses should not be used as ICE detention centers because they are not suitable for people and converting them to detention centers would have posed serious risks to the health, safety, and infrastructure of the surrounding communities,” he said.
Two sites had been purchased in Pennsylvania ― one in Upper Bern Township, in northern Berks County, and another in Tremont Township, in Schuylkill County, where the plan for a former Big Lots discount store drew the ire of residents. Both plans faced steep opposition from top officials like Shapiro and from local community activists.
ICE confirmed its plans to withdraw its permit requests in a filing Wednesday to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board, as well as in a July 13 letter from DHS Assistant Director James Ingalsbe.
News emerged earlier this year that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to spend more than $38 billion to buy warehouses and retrofit them as detention centers that would hold tens of thousands of immigrants. Those two dozen properties, including the two in Pennsylvania, would be located across the country, with some holding as many as 10,000 detainees.
In Pennsylvania, the Berks County project would have held 1,500 detainees, while the Schuylkill County one would have held 7,500.
An expanded ability to confine immigrants was central to Trump’s plan to deport as many as 1 million people a year. The additional space was necessary to help ICE respond to White House demands for greater numbers of arrests.
As of July 11, ICE held 65,765 people in detention, up from 60,311 in April, but below the record high of 70,766 set in January, according to Syracuse University professor Austin Kocher, who studies immigration data.
During Trump’s first year in office, the government fell short of his million-deportation goal, removing 622,000 people through mid-December, fewer than the 778,000 deportations carried out in President Joe Biden’s final fiscal year, according to the American Immigration Council in Washington, D.C.
While some around the country saw the conversion of empty warehouses as a chance for new jobs, others were opposed over humanitarian concerns, the impact on water and sewerage use, and the potential loss of tax revenue.
Earlier this summer, it appeared likely that the plans in Pennsylvania were being discarded.
The New York Times reported in June that ICE planned to offload its two properties in Pennsylvania and a third in New Jersey, which were purchased for more than $336 million. Those were among seven warehouses across the nation that would be sold or handed off to other federal agencies, according to the Times.
The same month, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) said that detention-warehouse plans would not go forward in Tremont and Upper Bern Townships and that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had “recognized the negative impacts these facilities would have in Pennsylvania.”
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