Detention Center Plans Meet Resistance in Rural Pennsylvania

The Department of Homeland Security has spent more than $1 billion in recent months buying nearly a dozen warehouses in several states to convert into immigrant detention centers, including two sites in rural Pennsylvania. In Tremont Township, Schuylkill County — where a former Big Lots warehouse is slated for a 7,500-bed facility — many residents say they learned of the plan only from news reports and felt blindsided by local officials, and community members are now pressing the question of who holds ICE accountable.