Secrecy on detention center is unacceptable

We just raised concerns about several cases of lack of transparency in state government, including failures to provide proper public notice of government actions and to share information on matters of great public interest.

It’s unfortunate that such problems are not limited to Harrisburg. A high-profile situation in the news right now points to serious issues with the way county and federal officials go about their business as well.

For years now Berks County has been the focus of considerable statewide and national attention because it hosts a facility where immigrant families with children are detained while awaiting a determination on asylum requests. It’s one of just three such facilities in the entire country.

As debates over immigration policy have raged over the past decade or so, the Berks County Residential Center in Bern Township has been a focal point for activists who believe it’s unjust for the U.S. government to detain families. For years there have been frequent rallies, vigils and other demonstrations on the site.

The majority of Berks County commissioners have held firm despite the protests, and the county has continued to manage the center for the federal government. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays to lease office space from the county and provides about $1 million in revenue annually to Berks.

There are strong feelings on both sides of this issue, but the Berks commissioners are within their rights to make arrangements with the federal government as they see fit. However, they owe it to the public to be open about what it is they’re doing and why. Far too often county officials have had nothing to say about the subject, deferring to ICE officials who rarely offer much information.

A particularly egregious example of this took place last week when the commissioners voted 2-1 to send ICE a letter of support regarding a white paper proposal for the center. Commissioners Christian Leinbach and Michael Rivera, who voted in favor, and Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt, who opposed the move, did not say anything about the proposal’s contents.

Nothing makes a mockery out of open-meetings laws more than boards taking public votes while keeping the subject matter secret. We’ve seen this before in local government, where boards take a vote on things without sharing any details, sometimes even failing to share a meeting agenda with the public.

How can the people weigh in on government decisions if they don’t even know what’s being discussed? It’s wrong on relatively obscure municipal issues, and it’s downright shocking when the question involves a hotly debated matter of national interest.

A county spokeswoman told media outlets that they had to file a right-to-know request to view the document the commissioners discussed last week. We have done so, and the county is required to deliver a response by Thursday.

The county owes it to the community to stop the stonewalling and offer information on what’s happening with the center as soon as possible.

It seems clear that something is going on. A new administration is running ICE. Last week the families housed in the center were released to relatives while they continue to await action on their asylum requests. So the facility is empty, but its fate is unclear.

Meanwhile changes are in the works at the other two family immigration detention facilities in Texas. According to the San Antonio Express News, government officials told advocate groups last week that ICE will no longer hold migrant families at those facilities and instead use the sites as temporary reception centers where those seeking asylum can get medical checks. Is something like that in the works for Berks? No one from the county or ICE will say.

Reasonable people can disagree on the best course of action for the center. But it is utterly unreasonable to discuss such an important issue of public interest while shutting out the public from the conversation. It’s time for Berks County and ICE to explain what they want to do and why.