Summer Lee

Two Democratic representatives from Allegheny County on Wednesday wrote letters to both the GEO Group and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “demand accountability” regarding what they consider violations at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County.

U.S. Reps. Chris Deluzio, D-Fox Chapel, and Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, sent the letters, which are seven pages each, to “demand answers on Geo’s failure to comply with federal standards of adequate staffing and medical care to detainees, as well as obstruction of congressional oversight,” according to their announcement. U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from Montgomery County, also signed the letters.

Each letter details 10 questions that the lawmakers are requesting “full, written responses to” within 14 days.

Moshannon — the largest immigrant detention facility in the Northeast — is run by Geo Group, a for-profit, private prison corporation based out of Florida.

Local and national immigrants-rights advocates have consistently called for the closure of Moshannon amid allegations of inhumane conditions at the center, which is about 130 miles from Pittsburgh.

The publicly traded company is ICE’s largest contractor, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Wednesday’s letters to ICE and the Geo Group came just over two months after Lee and Deluzio conducted a joint in-person visit of the Moshannon Valley — the first unannounced congressional visit that was allowed inside under the Trump administration.

They had attempted to conduct a visit there in August 2025, which was not granted.

Dean said during her June 17 visit to the facility, she was “explicitly blocked from speaking with the people detained inside,” unlike Lee and Deluzio during their visit.

During their May visit, Lee and Deluzio found what they said was “concerning” activity inside Moshannon.

For example, detained women expressed concerns about food and medical care, including care for pregnant women, according to their findings shared publicly after the visit.

Lee and Deluzio concluded there were “major differences” between what Moshannon leadership told Congress, as well as what detained people shared with them during the visit — especially regarding medical care, food quality and the ability to stay updated on their legal cases.

“We heard people talk about some of their abuses,” Lee said. “Some of the complaints that we heard about food and other things … pretty revealing.”

“As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, it is my constitutional duty to ensure that federal contractors honor their legal obligations and that taxpayer dollars do not fund systemic neglect or cruelty,” their letter states.

All incoming detainees must receive a comprehensive medical screening within 12 hours upon arrival, per ICE’s Performance-Based National Detention Standards, according to the letter.

”Despite these clear federal mandates, senior MVPC leadership, including the Geo warden and health services administrator, repeatedly admitted to me that initial medical screenings at MVPC occur 24 to 72 hours upon arrival,” the letter says. “Facility leadership subsequently confirmed this delay during a follow-up meeting with my staff, even after we formally flagged it as a contractual breach.

“Delaying initial medical screenings for up to three days in a facility housing nearly 1,900 people leaves acute illnesses, psychiatric distress and contagious diseases completely unmonitored. This is not merely an administrative failure; it is a material breach of contract that poses an immediate danger to the people detained at MVPC, facility staff and the surrounding community.”

The lawmakers also referenced in the letters multiple deaths that have occurred inside the facility.

In August 2025, 32-year-old Chaofeng Ge died by suicide. In 2023, 37-year-old Frankline Okpu died in custody. And in December 2025, 46-year-old Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir died in custody, they said.

“These failures are not accidental; they are the predictable result of a privatized, for-profit detention business model. As a publicly traded entity, Geo has a strict legal obligation, a fiduciary duty, to act in the best interest of its shareholders,” they wrote. “Geo’s focus on maximizing shareholder value drives aggressive cost cutting across medical personnel, nutritional quality and translation services.”

The letters were sent ahead of Geo’s second quarter earnings call scheduled for Thursday, the lawmakers said, which they plan on attending.

“There shouldn’t be earnings calls for human detention,” according to the letter.

Moshannon Valley Processing Center leadership was not immediately available Wednesday for comment on the questions asked in the letter.

ICE and the Geo Group also did not immediately return TribLive’s request for comment Wednesday

Acting ICE Director David Venturella spent more than a decade as a senior executive at Geo Group, serving as senior vice president of client relations and subsequently as a consultant receiving $10,000 per month through January 2025, the lawmakers said.

“Mr. Venturella’s Geo consulting agreement contains a non-compete clause that prohibits him from engaging with any entity that competes with Geo through 2027,” the letter says. “Having a former high-ranking Geo executive with an active non-compete clause serving as acting director of ICE raises profound questions of self-dealing, regulatory capture and whether ICE will ever hold Geo to account for its material contractual breaches.”

And on July 29, U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Democrat from Delaware County, conducted an unannounced oversight visit, “in which MVPC staff revealed that Geo employs only two full-time janitors at MVPC … (and) instead relies on detainee labor for sanitation, food and laundry services at MVPC.”

“Concerns over inadequate staffing and inhumane conditions at MVPC were further exposed,” the letter says.

14-day window

Lee, Deluzio and Dean are requesting answers from ICE and Geo Group to numerous questions, including federal contract compliance, a commitment to congressional oversight and recusal agreements governing former ICE and DHS officials currently employed by or consulting for Geo and current ICE and DHS employees formerly employed by or consulting for Geo.