CLEARFIELD — The Clearfield County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to sign a six-month contract extension for the operation of Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest immigration detention facility in the Northeast.
The commissioners’ five-year agreements with ICE and GEO Group are set to expire in late September.
The county acts as a middleman between the government agency and the private contractor that owns and operates Moshannon. For its part, the county receives $200,000 per year. The setup offered a workaround to former President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order banning private federal prisons, which President Donald Trump reversed in 2025.
The contract extension modifies the staffing plan and changes the contracting officer, but “all other terms and conditions remain unchanged,” according to a copy of the document obtained through a public records request.
Clearfield County Commissioner Dave Glass told Spotlight PA he’s voting no on the six-month extension, citing concerns about the behavior of ICE officers and saying he doesn’t support the federal government’s immigration policies. He said he feels more strongly about it than ever. Though he initially supported the arrangement and voted to approve the contract in 2021, he said it is the vote he regrets the most since becoming commissioner.
Since Moshannon reopened in 2021 as an immigration detention facility, it has drawn criticism from advocates for poor-quality food, inadequate healthcare, and inhumane conditions. The facility’s population has only risen as the Trump administration has escalated federal immigration policy and quickened deportations at a historic rate.
GEO Group didn’t respond to requests for comment, and ICE directed Spotlight PA to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not provide an on-the-record statement.
Commissioner John Sobel declined to say whether he would vote to approve the contract extension but told Spotlight PA that he tends to vote in support of GEO Group.
Commissioner Tim Winters didn’t respond to an interview request for this story.
During a Sept. 8 meeting, Winters said, “This is not a new long-term contract. This is just a complete as-is extension. The reason given was that GEO Group’s legal people were backed up with contracts and whatnot on their end.”
On Sept. 17, Pennsylvania’s seven Democratic U.S. representatives sent a letter to GEO Group, ICE, and the commissioners requesting information about the three parties’ financial relationship, invoices, and communications about invoices and payments. The letter, which asked for a response by Sept. 25, was signed by U.S. Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean, Summer Lee, Dwight Evans, Chrissy Houlahan, Chris Deluzio, and Brendan F. Boyle.
“GEO has reported record profits driven by this administration’s mass deportation and immigrant surveillance campaigns,” the lawmakers wrote. “As part of these efforts, ICE and Clearfield County have both funneled Pennsylvanians’ taxpayer dollars to GEO. More importantly, our constituents have been detained at Moshannon. It is incumbent on us, as their elected representatives, to investigate the contract terms that peg their detention to GEO’s profit.”
According to the contract extension, “the value of this [Intergovernmental Service Agreement] remains unchanged at $318,358,383.83, as sufficient ceiling remains to cover this extension.”
Glass said he doesn’t see how the legislators’ request for financial information would delay Tuesday’s vote.
“My response to that letter, which I intend to tell them as well, is ‘with respect, you likely know how much money has been paid to GEO better than we do. Take the amount the federal government (ICE) has sent us and subtract $200,000 per year.’ There is no other retained money and no additional funds sent from the county,” Glass told Spotlight PA in an email.
It’s possible Clearfield County commissioners won’t have a role to play after the contract extension expires in March.
In mid-July, ICE published a request for information on “turn-key detention services” for four regions across the country, including central Pennsylvania.
When asked about what the RFI means for Moshannon, an ICE spokesperson previously told Spotlight PA that the agency is working “to ensure continued access to detention capacity in those areas” and “is evaluating options, including the potential purchase of turnkey detention facilities where appropriate, or other contracting solutions to support continuity of operations.”
GEO Group’s founder and CEO George Zoley told shareholders in a second-quarter earnings call in early August that the company is “engaged in an active process for the sale of several of our turnkey facilities, subject to mutual agreement on price and our continued management of those facilities under long-term support services contracts.”
In late August, ICE published a request for proposal for several turnkey detention facilities, naming Moshannon explicitly as a “Historical Location” in the facility-specific requirements portion of the request.
“The Contractor shall furnish the proposed detention facility and provide all management, supervision, personnel, labor, equipment, vehicles, supplies, materials, and services necessary to provide safe, secure, humane, and compliant detention services for ICE detainees,” the request states.
Though ICE and GEO Group haven’t confirmed whether the facility is up for sale, they haven’t denied that possibility.
If ICE were to contract directly with GEO Group and cut the commissioners out of the equation, Sobel said he’s concerned that he and his colleagues won’t have as much access to GEO Group officials to check on whether someone is receiving medical care or quality food. Sobel said that he has appreciated the relationship with GEO Group and its communication when questions or concerns arise.
The intergovernmental agreement allows commissioners to enter the facility with 24-hour notice, but the officials have been denied access in the past.
During the Sept. 8 meeting, Glass said it was a red flag that when he initially asked Moshannon’s warden two months ago if GEO Group planned to sell Moshannon to ICE, the warden reportedly said it wasn’t happening. But two weeks ago, Glass said he asked the warden the same question and was told to contact GEO Group.
“Whatever you think about the facility, having that facility sold to the federal government and losing the tax base on that would be a huge, huge blow,” he said.
The Moshannon Valley Economic Development Partnership released a report this summer that said the detention facility is an economic driver for the Philipsburg area that accounts for more than 400 local jobs. Research from the Immigration Research Initiative, a nonpartisan think tank, acknowledged the jobs created by the facility but found “there is little evidence to support the promise that MVPC would spur local economic growth.” The report found that the number of jobs in Clearfield County has decreased since the facility opened and that the unemployment rate hasn’t improved either.
“With the contract for MVPC up for renewal or reconsideration, the lack of clear economic benefits raises very real questions about whether it is worth the cost of putting Clearfield County at the center of one of the most controversial aspects of the nation’s intensely contested immigration debates,” the report says.
If GEO Group sells the facility to the federal government, Moshannon would no longer be subject to local taxes. Sobel told Spotlight PA that GEO Group pays nearly $700,000 in property taxes, including to the Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District.
The facility also contributes $370,000 in sewage fees to Decatur Township, and $302,000 in local earned income tax.
The importance of maintaining the tax base is an argument that Winters and Sobel have repeatedly made throughout the years, frustrating advocates who say it dehumanizes people who are detained.
“It feels like we are devaluing people as humans,” Kali McLaughlin, a member of Indivisible: Outcry, said during a news conference held by the Shut Down Detention Campaign on Sept. 17. “We are using humans like chess pieces to collect money from, and they’re failing us in our economy. They’re the ones that are choosing for-profit detention as an economy. They’re hurting people and ripping families apart.”