Shapiro's ready for a fight
On Wednesday, Governor Shapiro sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem opposing both proposed detention facilities in Schuylkill and Berks counties.
"If you press ahead, my Administration will aggressively pursue every option to prevent these facilities from opening."
His letter laid out the infrastructure problems we've been talking about for weeks. For example:
“Your proposed facility could require up to 800,000 gallons of water per day, more than double the entire current system capacity. This could drain the community’s reservoir in a single day, leaving taps empty and homes and lives at risk in case of fire.”
Shapiro also committed to withholding state permits required for the facility to operate.
Thank you, Governor Shapiro! This is the kind of leadership that Schuylkill County needs and deserves.
(Sources: PennLive; Reading Eagle; Spotlight PA)
A victory in Mississippi
As we know, other communities are fighting the same fight. Byhalia, Mississippi is one of them.
According to Spotlight PA, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker opposed a proposed 8,500-bed detention center in Byhalia. He wrote a letter and made a phone call, and then DHS agreed to look elsewhere.
In about a week, Senator Wicker was able to stop DHS's plans to create an even larger facility than the one in Tremont. Senator Wicker took decisive action on behalf of his constituents and it paid off.
Here in PA, Senator Fetterman made a statement and sent DHS a letter, which is a good start. And our other senator... Wait. Where is our other senator?
Unfortunately, Senator McCormick has been silent on DHS's plan for the Schuylkill and Berks warehouses. We know that his staffers are aware of the issue and are in contact with Commissioner Padora. That's not enough!
Meuser plans to make things "nonnegative"
Rep. Dan Meuser told NOTUS he's been talking to DHS officials "every day" about local concerns. Good. But then there was this quote:
"We're going to work it out to make it as nonnegative of an impact and, hopefully, a very positive impact on my district."
That's not exactly reassuring.
We already know the negatives: lost tax revenue, increased demand and strain on emergency services and hospitals, water and sewer infrastructure that cannot handle a facility of this size, public health and safety risks, etc. We don't trust that our leaders actually have our best interests in mind, and whatever trust we might still have is eroding quickly.
What positives are there? And for whom?
Nobody's told us the benefits of why Schuylkill County should sacrifice so much tax revenue, safety, and infrastructure for this facility. In fact, nobody has shown up to the council meetings or county commissioner meetings to extol the virtues of a 7,500-bed detention center being forced upon us.
"There will be jobs," they say. "Good federal jobs." Nope. The vast majority of jobs at this facility will be GEO Group contract jobs, not federal ICE jobs.
"There will be 2,000-2,500 jobs." Okay, that sounds good, but do we actually need those jobs? No.
Schuylkill County's unemployment is low: about 3,300 unemployed people, or 4.9% of the labor force.
We have plenty of job openings: 1,925 openings according to the latest available data. And that's including some of those sweet, sweet federal jobs at our existing prisons.
So, who will be working in those jobs? Because it won't be Schuylkill County residents.
It's not adding up.
Who is this for? Why here? Why is everything so secretive? It's shady precisely because it's a terrible deal for us. Nobody can tell us the benefits because there are no benefits.
What you can do this week
Keep bugging our elected officials. It's working. In particular, call McCormick and Meuser.
Senator McCormick: (570) 941-0930
Tell him about Senator Wicker in Mississippi. And tell him that we don't want this ICE facility and we can't afford it. It will be an economic and public safety catastrophe for our community.
Rep. Dan Meuser: (570) 871-6370
Call Representative Meuser and tell him that "nonnegative" isn't good enough for us. We deserve and demand better than that. We want him to stop this project from moving forward.
Talk to your neighbors and friends.
Share this website with them. Check out Project Saltbox, which has lots of data about the other communities fighting DHS facilities.
Stay tuned.
We're planning to hold a town hall soon, so stay tuned for more info on that. In tomorrow's post, we'll summarize information from this past week's commissioners meeting.
If you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, email us at info@noskookdetention.com.
