U.S. Reps Lee, Deluzio say detainees see abuse, neglect at PA facility

• U.S. Representatives Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio conducted an unannounced inspection of the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Central Pennsylvania.
• Detainees at the immigrant detention facility reported experiencing neglect, abuse, and a lack of appropriate medical care.
• The Moshannon facility is the Northeast's largest and is operated by Geo Group, a private, for-profit prison corporation.
• The facility has a history of complaints, including nearly 90 allegations of civil and human rights abuses in fiscal year 2024.

On May 28, U.S. Reps. Summer Lee and Chris Deluzio conducted an unannounced inspection of the Northeast's largest immigrant detention facility, where the two Allegheny County Democrats spoke to detainees who said they were experiencing neglect and abuse, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Most of the people at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Central Pennsylvania don't have a criminal record and are classified as low-security detainees, said Deluzio, who lives in Fox Chapel and represents parts of Allegheny County and all of Beaver County.

Their visit came about nine months after Lee, who resides in Swissvale and represents parts of Westmoreland and Allegheny counties, including Pittsburgh, attempted to visit the facility in August 2025. At the time, she was turned away because of a Department of Homeland Security policy requiring lawmakers to provide seven-day notice before visiting. The policy was blocked by a federal judge in Washington D.C. earlier this year.

The visit also followed an alleged hunger strike protesting reported dangerous conditions at the facility and at least three detainee deaths in the past three years.

Democrats face restrictions limiting their ability to communicate with detainees at Central PA ICE facility

During the two hours they spent inside the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, Lee and Deluzio were not allowed to be accompanied by any staffers to help translate, the Post-Gazette reported. They also were not allowed to bring their phones inside the facility.

Deluzio also said he was forbidden from speaking with Randy Cordova Flores, a Peruvian father who was arrested in January and is being detained at the facility. Flores has a pending asylum case, a valid work authorization and no criminal record, the Post-Gazette reported.

Lee said many of the women at the facility were still able to speak with her during their visit despite the lack of translators and in spite of the potential for retaliation.

"We’ve heard that there has been retaliation against women. The women came forward because I think they saw this as their opportunity," Lee said. "There were two members of Congress here, finally."

Concerns raised over lack of appropriate medical care at Central PA detention facility

Detainees told Lee and Deluzio about a number of medical problems they were experiencing, the Post-Gazette reported.

The representatives spoke to a pregnant woman who was experiencing bleeding and didn't know the status of her pregnancy, a woman who said she had been sexually assaulted and another woman who said she didn't feel she was receiving appropriate care after a surgery.

Allegations of abuse, neglect at Central PA ICE detention facility aren't new

The Moshannon detention center has been accused of neglect and abuse for years, with initial allegations dating back to President Joe Biden's administration, the Post-Gazette reported.

Detainees made nearly 90 complaints of civil and human rights abuses in the fiscal year 2024, alleging sexual abuse, medical neglect and solitary confinement being commonly used.

Findings from an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Civil Rights and Liberties unit have not been released, though more than 140 agents were fired from the facility.

Most recently, the Shut Down Detention Campaign, a group working to close detention facilities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, said at a news conference that a detainee, Izzy Aly, was suffering from Stage 3 kidney failure and had not received proper medical treatment at the Moshannon facility, the Post-Gazette reported.

Aly, who was detained in Orlando, Fla., had a medical exam at the start of 2026 showing that he had kidney failure. He wasn't told of his diagnosis for two months, with advocates saying that he had not been seen by a doctor to treat his symptoms or taken to a hospital as of May 21.

Democrats hope to revoke immigration enforcement funding

Deluzio and Lee's visit to the Moshannon facility came during a midterm election year that sees Democrats working to take control of the U.S. House with a focus on reversing much of the Trump administration's immigration enforcement actions nationwide.

While Lee has called for the closure of the Moshannon facility, Deluzio has focused more on funding to ICE without saying whether or not the facility should be shut down.

"This is one cog in the machine," he said of Moshannon, the Post-Gazette reported. "If you close this facility and change nothing else, it’s not going to change what Donald Trump’s administration is doing."

If Democrats retake the House, a top priority will be revoking the approximate $160 billion in immigration enforcement spending appropriated in 2025 through Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, both Deluzio and Lee said.

"We need to have a complete reformation of how we do immigration, how we detain human beings, and the ways in which these folks are being treated," Lee said. "We’re seeing massive cuts, the largest cuts we’ve ever seen in history to Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, but yet billions upon billions of dollars continue to fund ICE."

Where is Central PA's ICE detention facility? Who runs it?

The Moshannon Valley Processing Center is located about two and a half hours away northeast of Pittsburgh in Centre County. The detention center is the Northeast's largest detention facility, the Tribune-Review reported, and it's run by Geo Group, a for-profit, private prison corporation based in Florida.

The publicly traded company is ICE's largest contractor, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Finch Walker is the Pittsburgh Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Contact Walker at [email protected]. Instagram: @finchwalker_. X: @_finchwalker.