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CLEARFIELD -- In mid-July, ICE published a request for information on "turn-key detention services" for four regions across the country, including central Pennsylvania, where it already has the largest immigration detention facility in the Northeast.
Local activists worry ICE is either trying to contract directly with GEO Group -- which owns and operates Moshannon Valley Processing Center -- or even potentially buy the facility.
When asked about what the RFI means for Moshannon, an ICE spokesperson told Spotlight PA in an Aug. 10 email that "ICE has access to over 80,000 beds across its entire detention network in a mixture of dedicated and non-dedicated facilities. As existing detention contracts in certain locations approach expiration, ICE is working to ensure continued access to detention capacity in those areas. As part of this effort, ICE is evaluating options, including the potential purchase of turnkey detention facilities where appropriate, or other contracting solutions to support continuity of operations."
Currently, Clearfield County acts as a middleman between ICE and GEO Group, an arrangement that provides the county government with a "minor" level of oversight over the facility, which has long been accused of physical and psychological abuse, poor healthcare, and inhumane conditions.
Clearfield County's five-year contracts with ICE and GEO Group are set to expire in late September. The setup offered a workaround to former President Joe Biden's 2021 executive order banning private federal prisons, which President Donald Trump reversed in 2025.
Activist Tim Smith, who says he has been fighting against immigration detention facilities for 23 years, first alerted commissioners about the RFI in an email on July 13.
Smith was a plaintiff in an October 2021 lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Pennsylvania against the Clearfield County commissioners for failing to comply with the state's open meetings law in regard to approving contracts with ICE and GEO Group.
"What's happening now is even more stark than what was happening five years ago," Smith said during public comment at the July 14 commissioners meeting. "I would hope that today on Bastille Day that we take at least an emergency measure to show your disapproval of what is coming."
"The [Moshannon] warden talked to us and swears GEO isn't selling the facility to ICE," Clearfield County Commissioner Dave Glass told the newsroom in a July 22 email. As for a potential contract between ICE and GEO Group, the warden had no information, Glass said. "And we've heard nothing else."
The warden did not return a request for comment, nor did GEO Group.
However, the company's founder and CEO George Zoley told shareholders in a second-quarter earnings call last week that GEO Group is "engaged in an active process for the sale of several of our turnkey facilities, subject to mutual agreement on price and our continued management of those facilities under long-term support services contracts."
He also said that "several other GEO facilities have support services
contracts that expire later this year. ICE has initiated a procurement process involving four facilities that we hope will result in new long-term support services contracts being awarded."
Zoley did not specify during the call which facilities he was referring to for potential sales or renewed contracts.
According to the RFI posting, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security "requires one or more Contractor Owned/Contractor-Operated detention facilities" in the Denver, Miami, Seattle, and Philadelphia "areas of responsibility."
The Philadelphia AOR -- which includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia -- facility should have a minimum of 1,800 detention beds and be located within 30 driving miles of State College Regional Airport.
Moshannon Valley has a bed capacity of 1,876 and is a roughly 27-mile drive from the airport.
The airport has become a major hub for ICE flights, with a massive jump from two flights in all of 2025 to 28 in April, 25 in May, and 23 in June, according to data from Human Rights First, a nonprofit that advocates for refugees and immigrants.
The RFI expands potential sites to include turnkey existing facilities, those requiring upgrades, and new constructions, with the caveat that properties must be able to begin housing detainees within 30 days of contract award and only house ICE detainees.
ICE is using the RFI to see what markets have available and how quickly it can ramp up its detention numbers, said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State who specializes in the intersection of criminal and immigration law.
With the lack of transparency, it's difficult to say whether this RFI is an effort to get ahead of Clearfield's upcoming contract renewals with ICE and GEO Group, García Hernández told Spotlight PA.
"So often, it's hard to understand just what they're doing, nonetheless, why they're doing it, and the reason for that is that oftentimes they don't tell us," he said.
In September 2021, Clearfield County commissioners voted to enter into a five-year intergovernmental service agreement with ICE "to provide detention services for detainees," according to the agreement.
Commissioners also approved a services contract with GEO Group, an international company based in Florida that owns and operates correctional and detention facilities around the globe. It "requires GEO to perform all duties and accept all responsibilities incumbent upon" the county under its agreement with ICE, according to the contract.
With the contracts ending in September, some community members worry that ICE will cut the county out of the equation rather than renew the arrangement.
For Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, it doesn't matter who holds the contract, because the facility is still running, separating families, and incarcerating loved ones.
"It's always unjust, always abusive, and it's always unnecessary, regardless of who or how detention centers are being operated," Rivera told Spotlight PA.
Pennsylvania U.S. Reps. Chris Deluzio, Madeleine Dean, and Summer Lee, all Democrats, wrote letters to ICE and GEO Group last week "to demand answers on GEO's failure to comply with federal standards of adequate staffing and medical care to detainees, as well as obstruction of congressional oversight," according to a news release.