This Pa. county wrestles with spectre of immigration detention center plan

By Emily Previti, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
June 15, 2026

Tremont Township has one traffic light.

It’s located at the intersection of Route 209 and Rausch Creek Road.

From there, you can see a warehouse purchased by the federal government to convert into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing and detention facility as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation initiative.

The structure is one of nearly a dozen warehouses in several states the federal government bought for this purpose. Two are in Pennsylvania. One is in Schuylkill County. The Tremont site, which was previously a Big Lots distribution center, would have a capacity of 7,500 people – among the largest such facilities in the country. The other  – located 20 miles away in Upper Bern Township, Berks County – would have the capacity to detain 1,500 people.

Infrastructure in both communities cannot support an operation of that scale – and that reality opened the door for the state government to stall the two projects in the commonwealth, as comparable challenges proceed elsewhere.

At the federal level, there’s been a slowdown attributed to the transition to a new Secretary of Homeland Security and an audit by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general into whether the warehouse acquisitions were cost-effective. Meanwhile, DHS has received another appropriation of tens of billions of dollars.

And in Tremont, the 300-person community finds itself in limbo.

They’ve been thrust into the national immigration debate. Presently, it’s  marked by hunger strikes and documented abuses – with more alleged  – at existing detention centers, as well as the highest number of deaths in at least two decades.

On the outside, there’s outrage over the Trump administration’s tactics. Not only at the facilities, but also in neighborhoods, at courthouses and on roadsides. Federal agents have been separating families, detaining citizens and non-citizens with legal status, arresting people for administrative violations, entering homes without warrants and shooting and killing people in the street.

People in Schuylkill County also are grappling – once again – with the possibility of exploitation by outsiders, a pattern that dates back hundreds of years to the beginning of the coal industry. Now basically non-existent in this part of Pennsylvania’s Coal Region, mining remains central to the area’s identity – as well as some of its most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges.

On the ground

Joyce Wetzel is perhaps the person physically closest to this issue in Tremont. For the past 25 years, she’s been running a daycare center next to the site.

Big Lots closed its distribution center there at the end of 2024. But nothing much really changed for Wetzel, other than traffic dropping off.

Then in January, she got a phone call from Tremont Township Supervisor Larry Bender letting her know that the federal government now owned the property next door.

At first, Wetzel figured it was good news because nothing had been happening with the site. But Bender shared that a public, tax-exempt entity owning the structure  meant tax revenue losses equivalent to 40 percent of the township’s annual budget.

She also started reflecting on how she might be affected.

“Every day, something could happen [as it is],” Wetzel said. “You have to be right on top of everything because the children’s safety is A number one. After that thing’s up and running, my nerves will be shot.”

And after word got out, about a quarter of families with children – ages six months to 12 years old – enrolled told her:

“They will pull their children,” she said. “I’m really worried.”

Why Tremont

Wetzel says she’s reached out to U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick and Congressman Dan Meuser, to no avail.

“I left messages, voicemails. I sent emails out. And no response. I did say, ‘I am the daycare center that is right next to the Big Lots distribution center,’” Wetzel said.

Wetzel, Meuser and McCormick are Republicans, like most registered voters in Schuylkill County.

Meuser, whose district contains both facilities planned in Tremont and Upper Bern, is running for a fifth term. He hasn’t faced a primary challenger since his first. And he wins by wider margins with each election, getting nearly 70 percent of votes in 2024.

Meuser’s challenger in November, Rachel Wallace, has focused on the planned detention center as one of her core issues.

Wallace, a 37-year-old who spent more than a decade working in Washington before returning last year to the county where her family’s been for generations, organized a town hall about the detention center prospect.

“Over 100 people come out to this little fire company,” she said. “It’s seven degrees outside. And it was very clear that we had people from across the political spectrum. But it was very clear that locally this was a bad thing for the community and people didn’t want it. And they wanted to know: how do we stop it.”

The event happened Jan. 29. That’s also the effective date of the sale in county records, though few seemed to realize it at the time.

Nearly one month prior, The Washington Post had published a story listing potential detention center sites – including Tremont.

At one point, nearly two dozen places had been under consideration. The targeted communities tended to have populations that are less diverse, with relatively few immigrants.  For example, just 2 percent of people in Schuylkill County are immigrants versus 14 percent nationally and 8 percent in Pennsylvania, according to the Capital-Star’s analysis of data from the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Poverty and unemployment rates also are higher, the analysis showed.

“It wouldn’t happen in a wealthy area,” said Lara Wiscount, who lives in Tremont Borough. “They wouldn’t allow it.”

Wiscount, a retired public school teacher, wasn’t talking solely about the detention center proposal. She made the remark after reflecting on the area’s mining past and sharing an anecdote about glimpsing multiple prisons, factories, landfills and more while driving around the county.

“It’s too much,” she told the Capital-Star. “Our communities are being asked to absorb landfill expansion, data centers, bio solids, and now massive detention centers. One project after another, each carrying significant long-term consequences for all of us.”

Elsewhere, news got out about ICE’s plans to set up shop before real estate deals had closed – and ensuing public outcry ultimately pressured private owners out of selling.

That happened in at least half a dozen communities, including Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Hutchins, Texas.

High-ranking Republican officials – like New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker – shut down ICE’s plans right away in a couple states, before the federal government bought anything.

After property acquisitions, Arizona and Maryland’s state attorneys general filed lawsuits.

Those scenarios are comparable, as far as timing, to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s orders to use water restrictions to slow things down. It’s a tactic that’s been used in other places, including in Salt Lake City.

And in Roxbury, New Jersey, the federal government recently agreed to do an environmental impact study that will possibly take months – until well beyond the original target date to have the warehouse converted and operating as an ICE facility.

Where the purchases went through, they’ve been criticized as secretive. The federal government utilized a procurement method – the Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract (WEXMAC) –  that lacks the transparency of standard public contracting because it’s designed for military use in emergencies.

In Pennsylvania, public officials should have moved faster, said Bernie Gardula, who lives in Tremont Township and runs Rausch Creek Off-Road Park about one mile south of the warehouse site.

“Who knows who knew about it? Everybody lies,” Gardula said. And even for those who ‘didn’t know anything about it’ you know it’s on a list, so why aren’t you looking into what can be done?”

Some in elected office knew about the Post story within days because Schuylkill County Economic Development Corporation President Frank Zukas emailed a group of them about it.

Zukas wrote he’d been unable to verify the “veracity” of the Post’s reporting and linked to hyperlocal news outlet the Coal Region Canary’s story flagging the Post article.

The Capital-Star reached out to Zukas multiple times starting May 21. He responded June 12, saying he was unavailable until this week and declined to provide a specific date and time to talk.

Tremont Township’s tax collector received a letter dated Jan. 5 checking for liens on the property on behalf of the federal government.

“That right there should have been your telltale sign that they were looking at buying,” Gardula said. “Everybody said they didn’t know anything about it. You’re going to have to wait until they file for a deed. Well, if we wait until they file for a deed, it’s too late.”

The Pottsville Republican Herald ran a story confirming the plans Jan. 20.

By then, the deed had already been signed (five days earlier, Jan. 15, though it wasn’t recorded until Feb. 2, according to county officials).

“They certainly didn’t come here and ask my permission to put an ICE center in my backyard,” said state Rep. Joanne Stehr (R-Schuylkill), who was among officials on the email from Zukas.

Stehr, a career nurse who’s the first woman to both represent her district and from Schuylkill County to serve in the state House, said it seems to her that most people in the district support the detention center.

“We’ve been a neglected community,” Stehr said. “We have a biosolid factory, a chicken manure factory. We have a chemical waste dump. It couldn’t get much worse.”

While she’d prefer a “less controversial” project, Stehr sees opportunity with thousands of jobs and millions of federal dollars to invest in infrastructure.

“Our whole community will benefit,” she said. “If not, it would be another empty old warehouse sitting along the highway.”

Stehr also said it seems like ICE targets people with criminal records or outstanding charges – and that other undocumented immigrants who happen to be around also are taken into custody.

That practice, known as collateral arrests, is long-held and controversial.

It accounted for almost one-third of immigration arrests in Pennsylvania, one of the highest rates of any state, according to an analysis by the Capital-Star’s sister outlet, Stateline, of data from August 2025 through this past March.

Also, the percentage of immigrants in custody without criminal records has ballooned. And the number of detained immigrants in the U.S. about doubled last year.

That’s down slightly so far this year. Experts have attributed the dip to backlash over ICE’s detention re-engineering initiative, as it’s formally called; particularly, DHS’s escalation in Minneapolis, Minnesota – including federal agents shooting and killing Renee Goode and Alex Pretti.

Still, the number of people detained without criminal histories outnumbers those with convictions and charges. That was not the case a couple years ago.

“It’s a necessary evil,” Stehr said. “They have a job to do. And I got really railroaded [at Wallace’s town hall in January] because I said, ‘You know, if somebody would harm my family member, I would want them to go to jail or get out of the country or have some kind of problem.’”

Surviving, not thriving

Although the Big Lots sign is still up, the warehouse has been empty for 18 months – and the company technically hadn’t owned the building since June 2020, when it entered a leaseback agreement with Oak Street Real Estate Capital. The deal entailed selling the property for $129.5 million and paying rent to the new owner.

After the warehouse closed, it was about a year before Blue Owl (which had acquired Oak Street) sold it for $119.5 million dollars to the federal government.

That transaction takes nearly $1 million in combined annual tax revenue from local schools and governments. Those taxing districts had previously given up revenue on the property until 2011 as a way to entice Big Lots to the county through the state’s Keystone Opportunity Zone designation.

To try to address the loss in revenue, the Schuylkill County Commissioners say they’re pursuing a payment in lieu of taxes (i.e., a PILOT or PILT) from the federal government.

Taxing districts all over the country have them with exempt entities like universities, hospitals and nonprofits – in addition to other, often larger government units. More than 40 counties in Pennsylvania received between $200 and nearly $400,000 each last year in federal PILTs.

In this case, federal officials have, on conference calls, floated the offer of a PILT for at least three years, according to County Commissioner Larry Padora.

ICE and DHS haven’t responded to questions from the Capital-Star about that time limit and where things stand with negotiating the agreement.

County commissioners have emphasized that they’ll pursue a PILT, even if the detention center never comes to fruition. They wanted that to start with the next fiscal year that starts July 1, according to a letter from Padora.

But the draft agreement they were hoping for by mid-April hasn’t happened.

“This is a surviving area, … not thriving,” Gardula said. “Take away any of the politics with what they’re actually doing over there. And just the money side of it, they’re gonna decimate this area.”

From roads to first responders

Infrastructure is also a major concern.

DHS’ plan is – or was – to detain as many as 7,500 people at the facility (adult women for a maximum of 60 days, average, according to Pedora, which ICE/DHS wouldn’t confirm) and staff it with at least 2,000 workers.

That means the operation would add more people to the area than live in any municipality in Schuylkill County – with the exception of its largest: the county seat of Pottsville, with a population of 13,000.

Of the 67 municipalities in the county, a handful have their own police force. The vast majority rely on the Pennsylvania State Police. Troopers provide coverage not only to Tremont Township, but also every bordering community except Reilly Township (which shares a police department with Branch Township).

State police declined to comment on discussions and planning for a detention center in Tremont, specifically, and on how it works – in general – when a relatively vast operation comes to an area they’re largely responsible for policing.

Pennsylvania law requires state police coverage wherever municipalities don’t have their own force, which has been a longstanding issue in the commonwealth marked by longer response times, concerns over staffing and more.

“A lot of people in Schuylkill County, including Tremont, you … call the state police, you’re gonna wait 20 minutes for them to show up. And that’s what you’ve got,” said Democratic congressional candidate Rachel Wallace.

DHS and ICE said they plan to provide or contract a provider for primary medical and dental care at these facilities. However, emergency response remains an open question.

Another problem: the amount of water that the detention center would require. The facility would more than double the sewage system service population of 4,000 people. And the area’s water supply has been so limited that a couple years ago, it ran out during a fire in the borough of Tremont.

That’s where daycare center owner Joyce Wetzel has lived her entire life. Her  business also sits across Rausch Creek Road from a wastewater treatment site.

“They’ve been trucking water in, tanker loads, just to accommodate … the amount that they need,” she said.

In addition to quantity, water quality requires ongoing management due to its high iron and manganese content – a legacy of the mining industry, according to Patrick Caulfield, executive director of the Schuylkill County Municipal Authority.

“It was so bad that we actually were required to build a filtration plant,” said Caulfield, who’s been with the authority for nearly three decades.

Recently, the state approved a permit for the Tierney Reservoir. The process, Caulfield and his colleagues are quick to emphasize, began about two years ago – well before the news that the community will potentially host a detention center that would add thousands of people to the region.

The additional capacity from the reservoir is at most 70,000 gallons per day versus the 900,000 gallon estimated daily minimum need of the ICE facility, according to Caulfield and the DEP.

As of June 11, Caulfield still hasn’t heard from ICE or DHS. Representatives also haven’t asked him questions on conference calls he’s joined.

“As far as what would be needed for this proposed facility, we cannot comment because no one has asked us,” Caulfield said. “Our involvement is very simple, very basic. And unfortunately at this time, we have nothing. We have not had a reach out. We’ve not had a request to re-hookup what’s already there. We have zero in front of us right now.”

Those issues are highlighted in the state DEP’s orders essentially blocking local officials from allowing connections to water and sewage systems at both sites, in lieu of specific plans from ICE.

The federal agency has appealed.

It wants minimal water and sewage system service for bathrooms and water fountains for security personnel on site and others there to finish the plans being requested – a relatively low level already approved for the sites’ function as warehouses. In Upper Bern, the site also has stormwater and sewage infrastructure problems that its prior owner recently agreed to address.

“Why not put that out there prior to them buying it?” Gardula said. “I mean, there was a hint that they were coming, and it was a hint that it was them. We were on a list. Everybody knew it. So why aren’t they telling the federal government, ‘Hey, if you guys plan on buying this property, here’s what’s going to happen’? Because that probably could have squashed it.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro did write to then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and copied  relevant federal, state, and local officials. His letter detailed the issues with infrastructure and water supply in Tremont and Upper Bern. But it was two weeks after the sale of the property.

A few weeks later, the DEP orders came. At that point, more than one month had gone by since the federal government bought the former Big Lots distribution center.

ICE has not responded to the Capital-Star’s questions about plans, budgets, and timeline for infrastructure development.

“[If] the state holds them from getting it, now what happens to that building? Now, if the feds don’t sell it, then it sits empty. Now everybody loses even more because now we don’t have taxes,” Gardula said.

Community response

Meanwhile, Tremont Borough and Frailey Township have passed resolutions stating their opposition to the detention center. The move gets the elected leaders’ positions on the record, but doesn’t change anything in practical terms. Tremont Township supervisors and Schuylkill County commissioners have declined to do so.

Commissioner Gary Hess, the sole Democrat on the board, had made it clear he opposes the detention center. Neither Padora nor Commissioner Barron “Boots” Hetherington has taken an official position.

“We have to work with ICE,” Padora said. “And try to make sure that if they come here, that everything’s protected. So, I am not making a public statement. I am not the President of the United States. The President sets his immigration policy. I am sticking to what I need to do to protect the people of Schuylkill County.”

The detention center dominated public meetings early this year, then dwindled during late spring to a degree as debates over data centers and a landfill expansion also have demanded attention.

No Skook Detention hasn’t added to its website’s news aggregation since early April. Comprised of county residents, the group runs the site in addition to attending meetings, engaging elected officials and organizing events such as a town hall in March that drew about 100 people.

Brianna DelValle, of Orwigsburg, led that event. Ahead of it, she talked to the Capital-Star about the many concerns surrounding the prospective ICE facility – including skepticism about possible economic benefits for the region.

Of 100 positions with ICE or adjacent agencies available June 12 per USAjobs.com, none specified Tremont as a location.

While it might be early yet for active hiring, the federal government also could largely privatize operations as it has elsewhere. Padora has said he hasn’t been given an indication either way by federal officials.

And what about plans longer term?

“A lot of people have asked what’s going to happen after they’re done with this deportation thing,” DelValle said. “Is Geo Group or whoever runs it going to be okay, are their shareholders gonna be okay with now suddenly having to shut down these facilities? Probably not.”

Behind closed doors

Stehr, Wallace, Wetzel and others are concerned about potential protests against ICE taking place in the county and turning violent. And they want to know how people will be treated while detained.

“People coming through our facility out here might absolutely be [human trafficking] victims,” Stehr said. “Drug mules, people in the sex trade brought here maybe against their will.”

Wetzel said she has questions that go beyond her business.

“I didn’t know exactly how the process worked, but I’m finding things out,” Wetzel said. “And I’m concerned. How many – 7,500 people? That’s a lot of people. How are they going to sleep? How are they going to eat? Are they going to be families? Are they going to be criminals? Are they going to, what do I do with those protesters? I have children out here.”

Padora has said he wants the agreement with the federal government to afford tours to county officials (although he didn’t mention that in his letter listing a PILT and other asks).

DHS and ICE haven’t responded to multiple email and phone requests for comment from the Capital-Star, including whether the demands from county officials are feasible.

But it could be a long shot. Padora acknowledged he and other officials haven’t toured the state and federal prisons up and running in the county for years. And members of Congress have struggled to avail themselves of the access to which they already are supposed to have.

“There will be people dying there. We are not allowed to inspect it. No one’s allowed in. No one’s allowed to see what’s going on,” said Joe Wiscount. “And we have a government who has been lying to us with videos rolling with what happened in Minneapolis. What’s going to happen behind closed doors? It is a concern on top of all these other local infrastructure and quality of life issues.”

During public debates, those other issues tend to get more attention than humanitarian concerns.

“This stuff is just so polarizing,” said Lara Wiscount, Joe’s wife. “That’s what was so encouraging, when we went to the meetings. That our concerns overlap and cross over party lines.

Where things stand

An unnamed DHS spokesperson has replied three times by email the same way, as recently as June 12, to the many questions sent to the agency and ICE during the past few months: that ICE’s detention reengineering initiative is under review, as with any transition – referring to Secretary Markwayne Mullin taking over for former agency leader Kristi Noem.

The emails also referred to Mullin’s testimony during his confirmation hearing: “I won’t be able to speak to that until I understand the risk and the reason behind delivering the mission that’s set in front of us. We got to protect the homeland and we’re going to do that. But obviously, we want to work with community leaders. We want to be good partners.”

Mullin was responding to Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire – where ICE was prevented from buying a warehouse for conversion to a detention facility. The state’s congressional delegation has since introduced legislation to require DHS to solicit public comment and get written approval from state and local officials before initiating the development of an ICE processing or detention facility, in addition to notifying relevant congressional committees.

Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan – a Democrat and Air Force veteran whose 6th Congressional District abuts Meuser’s ninth – is among cosponsors. Meuser, McCormick and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s offices have declined to say whether they’d support those rules. Wallace said she would.

Fetterman, whose wife came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant, has written to Noem and Mullin stating his opposition to developing detention centers in Tremont and Upper Bern. The letters also outline concerns from constituents who’ve written to him.

Meuser and McCormick’s offices didn’t respond to questions about their lack of engagement with Wetzel.

McCormick’s office provided the following statement by email:

Meuser, whom Padora credits for facilitating conference calls with DHS and ICE, has talked about establishing a community relations board as among “commitments to prevent disruption and improve townships across” his district.

The board would “meet regularly to provide opportunities for facility site visits and serve as a forum to raise and address concerns. Local authorities will retain their standard life-safety and health inspections in accordance with existing requirements,” he wrote in an update published in The Times Leader March 28.

Asked last week about progress on that front – in addition to his support for the proposed notification policies and engagement with Wetzel and other constituents – Meuser said through a spokesman:

“I am working closely with DHS and local officials to ensure community concerns about potential immigration facilities in our district are properly addressed, and I will continue to provide more information as it is available. I represent members of the community.

This information is as much theirs as it is mine. DHS should be open and transparent about this process, and their representatives have been very agreeable to the terms we worked on together if they continue to pursue this facility.”

ICE and DHS didn’t respond to requests to verify that, nor provide details on progress toward a written agreement.

Meuser also told the Coal Region Canary that he was basically in wait and see mode following Pottsville Mayor Tom Smith’s state of the city address May 22.

“We’re just waiting to see what the next step is and whether or not, frankly, it even comes to fruition is not definite,” he told the outlet. “The community will be the first to know as soon as I know.”

Commissioners have started to wonder aloud, publicly, whether the detention center will open at all.

Even if things had proceeded steadily, the initial target date seemed like a long shot to many in the community.

“They wanted them open by the end of 2026,” said Bernie Gardula. “I mean, how? There’s been no movement. They’re going to get halfway through their infrastructure change, and everything in Congress is going to change. You get your Republicans, the ones in power now. Once that shifts over back over to the Democrats, they’re going to pull the plug on all of it and everything’s just going to sit wherever it is. … Eventually, we’re going to lose no matter what.”

Editor’s note: The key points for this story were written by a Pennsylvania Capital-Star journalist.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.