Activists: Close immigrant family-detention center

Activists say that’s a bad idea. Tonya Wenger and Pat UribeLichty, members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County, started visiting detainees in Berks in 2016. During those visits, they said, they witnessed the psychological effects of detention on children: a young boy who did not cry when he hurt himself because he feared he would get in trouble; a young girl whose trust in her mother’s authority eroded after she saw guards scold the woman.

“The trauma that the families are dealing with is not just the trauma of what they’ve been through to cross the border, you know. It’s what ICE, the institution, is putting them through,” said Ms. Wenger.

“Some people have claimed, ‘Oh, well, it’s taking care of them.’ It’s ridiculous because it’s money that should go into resources that they need when they’re waiting in communities,” said Sandra Fees, minister of the Unitarian church. “The point is that there are much better ways for this money to be spent, to support these families, and the criminalization of them is what the problem is, at every stage.”

Opponents of the detention center have proposed other uses for the building to keep the county from suffering if it were shut down. In a July 16 editorial, the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested turning it into a state-funded drug treatment facility. They reported than more than 85 people have died of heroin or fentanyl overdoses in Berks County each of the last two years.

For now, the activists have their hopes pinned on the governor, who they insist does have the power to release those detained in Berks.

“No matter what, whether the national attention focuses on something else, we’re not stopping,” said Jasmine Rivera, an organizer with the Shut Down Berks Coalition. “Pennsylvanians aren’t going to unlearn this and this coalition will continue to fight as long as that prison is open.”