Scanlon denounces \u2018lawless\u2019 DHS, ICE: \u2018The slope is no longer slippery here\u2019<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump\u2019s 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<\/a> nurse Alex Pretti, 37, on Saturday as he was observing an immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis. Several weeks earlier, an ICE agent killed<\/a> Renee Good, 37, also in Minneapolis.\n<\/p>\n \u201cToday, it\u2019s an immigrant being wrestled to the ground and tomorrow it\u2019s an American being shot,\u201d Scanlon said. \u201cThe slope is no longer slippery here. The lawless behavior we\u2019re 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\u2019s happening to someone who\u2019s \u2018the other\u2019 that people don\u2019t understand that it could happen to them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n After Chaofeng Ge, a Chinese national, died while in ICE custody at Moshannon Valley Processing Center<\/a> in August 2025, Scanlon attempted to conduct<\/a> a congressional oversight visit at the GEO Group-operated facility and was denied entry.\n <\/p>\n Conditions at Moshannon \u201care supposed to be worse by all the reporting we\u2019ve got,\u201d she said, noting that her office checks in with immigration and civil rights advocates about what\u2019s happening to ICE detainees.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThey are being railroaded in so many cases, right out of the country, even if they have valid claims to stay,\u201d Scanlon said.\n<\/p>\n 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 \u201creal guardrails and a fundamental restructuring.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really important that DHS not get another dime until there are really substantial and radical changes to how it\u2019s operating,\u201d Scanlon said.\n<\/p>\n Number of ICE detainees held at FDC Philadelphia soared in 2025<\/p>\n The Center City jail, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, began holding<\/a> ICE detainees in February 2025.\n<\/p>\n The number of ICE detainees held there has increased exponentially since then, per the most recent data<\/a> from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that compiles immigration detention data via public records requests.\n<\/p>\n 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<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds like they\u2019ve been running 60 to 80 [people] most nights,\u201d Scanlon said.\n<\/p>\n 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.\n<\/p>\n