Scanlon denounces ‘lawless’ DHS, ICE: ‘The slope is no longer slippery here’

Scanlon said Federal Bureau of Prisons personnel and some ICE personnel were on hand for the visit. ICE detainees are held in a portion of the jail separate from the prison population, she said. Prison personnel told Scanlon that no ICE detainees wanted to speak with her, she said.

President Donald Trump’s nationwide immigration crackdown has been the source of widespread angst and frustration in his second term in office. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer fatally shot nurse Alex Pretti, 37, on Saturday as he was observing an immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis. Several weeks earlier, an ICE agent killed Renee Good, 37, also in Minneapolis.

“Today, it’s an immigrant being wrestled to the ground and tomorrow it’s an American being shot,” Scanlon said. “The slope is no longer slippery here. The lawless behavior we’re seeing from DHS and ICE and the lack of brakes upon it should really be concerning to everyone. And I worry that if it just seems like it’s happening to someone who’s ‘the other’ that people don’t understand that it could happen to them.”

After Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese national, died while in ICE custody at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in August 2025, Scanlon attempted to conduct a congressional oversight visit at the GEO Group-operated facility and was denied entry.

Conditions at Moshannon “are supposed to be worse by all the reporting we’ve got,” she said, noting that her office checks in with immigration and civil rights advocates about what’s happening to ICE detainees.

“They are being railroaded in so many cases, right out of the country, even if they have valid claims to stay,” Scanlon said.

As the U.S. Senate debates funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees CBP and ICE, Scanlon said the department is in need of “real guardrails and a fundamental restructuring.”

“I think it’s really important that DHS not get another dime until there are really substantial and radical changes to how it’s operating,” Scanlon said.

Number of ICE detainees held at FDC Philadelphia soared in 2025

The Center City jail, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, began holding ICE detainees in February 2025.

The number of ICE detainees held there has increased exponentially since then, per the most recent data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that compiles immigration detention data via public records requests.

As of Nov. 28, 2025, there were on average 94 ICE detainees held at FDC Philadelphia each day. The maximum number of beds dedicated to ICE detainees is 125.

“It sounds like they’ve been running 60 to 80 [people] most nights,” Scanlon said.

WHYY News has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the average daily population for immigrant detainees at FDC Philadelphia, and has not yet received a response.

FDC Philadelphia is among a number of existing or newly constructed jails and detention centers that the Trump administration used last year to double immigrant detention space across the country.