Daniel Meuser

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Around noon Monday, just after the bells of a nearby church stopped ringing, a group of around 60 people gathered at the corner of Third and Island streets in Hamburg began their chants.

“One, two, three, four, let’s get Meuser out the door.”

“Hi ho, hi ho, Danny Meuser has to go.”

They weren’t alone.

Hundreds of people were expected to take part in protests Monday across the 9th Congressional District to voice their frustration with the leadership of U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, who has represented them for the last seven years.

The district stretches from Lebanon and Berks counties north to the New York state line, also encompassing all or parts of Schuylkill, Carbon, Northumberland, Montour, Columbia, Luzerne, Lycoming, Sullivan, Wyoming, Susquehanna and Bradford counties.

Those protesting Monday were calling on Meuser to be more responsive to his constituents, specifically by hosting host town halls. His last such meeting was in December in Pottstown with just 30 people in attendance.

While the congressman has invited his constituents to several telephone town hall sessions throughout his time in office, residents say they want face-to-face meetings with Meuser to talk about issues they are facing.

A spokesman for Meuser on Monday did not directly respond to the Reading Eagle’s request for comment about the protests or address the demands by protesters that the congressman meet with them.

He did, however, reiterate previous statements that Meuser has been working closely with local stakeholders and the Trump administration to ensure any immigration facility in the district operates safely and addresses concerns regarding local impact, infrastructure and funding.

“As outlined in the Congressman’s March 27 update published by the Reading Eagle, DHS made commitments based on the plan for the facilities to operate as detention centers,” the statement read. “If changes to that plan occur, the Congressman and his staff will monitor it, stay ahead of it and work to assure the best outcomes possible for our region.”

ICE Out Upper Bern, a nonpartisan group opposing the plan by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to use a warehouse in the township to hold 1,500 people as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center, took the lead in organizing a protest outside Meuser’s district office at the Hamburg Municipal Center.

“It’s not about politics — it’s about the issues,” Deborah Miller, chairwoman of ICE Out Upper Bern, said.

The 527,000-square-foot building at 3501 Mountain Road is one of 23 sites across the country ICE has tapped to become warehouse-based immigration detention centers. It was purchased in late January by the federal government for $87.4 million.

If the plan proceeds, Miller said, it will deprive local communities of $828,000 in critical tax revenue, place unsustainable demands on local infrastructure, disrupt the daily lives of local residents, overwhelm emergency services, create traffic issues and lead to declining property values for its neighbors.

“We are here today to let Dan Meuser know that we are unhappy with the proposed ICE detention center that he has facilitated for months,” she told the crowd at the Hamburg protest.

Miller said Meuser was scheduled to speak at the Upper Bern Township Supervisors’ April meeting but cancelled that appearance. Since then, she said, countless phone calls, postcards, letters and texts to Meuser with concerns about the facility have gone unanswered.

“Isn’t that a responsibility of an elected federal congressman…to provide answers on federal government projects within his district?” Miller asked.

In addition to the strain the detention center would have on the communities surrounding the facility, several speakers at the event shared concerns about who is going to be housed at the facility or in what conditions they will be held.

Nancy Omaha Boy said individuals detained by ICE are entitled to due process under the U.S. Constitution but there have been well-documented instances where these rights were violated.

“In the Constitution, it very specifically says that all people in the U.S. have the right to due process,” she said. “It does not say people with green cards, people with passports, people who are citizens — those words are not in the Constitution. What we are seeing over and over again is the deterioration of these rights.”

Omaha Boy said she is also worried about reports of ICE detention centers where conditions are “inhumane and cruel.”

“They have no access to clean water, no access to proper health care and insufficient access to food,” she said. “We do not want something like that in our community.”

Patty Torres, an executive director of Make the Road Pennsylvania, said there is fear among Latinos living in the 9th Congressional District that an ICE facility in Berks will bring an increased ICE presence in the region.

“We know the proposed detention centers are being placed in rural communities but the impact of these facilities will be felt far beyond,” she said. “The immigrants who live in cities like Reading, Hazleton, Bethlehem and Allentown will face increased fear, family separation and economic destruction.”

Torres said for those reasons, those living in these rural communities and those living in urban communities must unite together to stop the opening of the detention center.

“The cost and the consequences will be borne by working families across the region,” she said. “So we urge Congressman Meuser to listen to the communities that will be affected and reject the expansion of immigrant detention.”