DHS drops the Berks County ICE detention center plan

Update, July 23, 2026: The reversal is now formal. On July 22 the Shapiro administration said the Department of Homeland Security withdrew its appeals of Pennsylvania's environmental orders and confirmed in writing that ICE "will not be using [either] Property as a detention center." Dropping the appeals makes the state's Department of Environmental Protection orders final. The administration put the combined capacity the two warehouses would have held at up to 9,000 people: up to 1,500 in Upper Bern Township and up to 7,500 at the companion site in Tremont, Schuylkill County. What becomes of the Upper Bern building is still unanswered. Details below.

Update, July 7, 2026: This report originally described the facility plan as active and the fight over it as likely to last years. Hours after publication, our review of the county's June 25 meeting minutes and subsequent press coverage confirmed DHS dropped the plan in late June. The report has been rewritten to reflect that.

The federal government will not open the ICE detention center it planned inside a 520,000-square-foot warehouse in Upper Bern Township. U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser said in late June that the Department of Homeland Security informed his office its enforcement plans "will not include the proposed detention or processing centers in Berks or Schuylkill counties," and Commissioner Dante Santoni Jr. announced the reversal at the June 25 county commissioners meeting, crediting the governor's office and the residents who organized against it.

The government still owns the building it paid $87.4 million for in February. What happens to it is now the open question.

How the reversal unfolded

• June 18: The New York Times reports, citing an internal DHS document, that seven of eleven facilities the department bought for detention expansion will not move forward, including the Berks and Schuylkill county sites, and that DHS plans to sell them or hand them to other agencies. The department had paid more than $700 million for the seven.
• June 25: Santoni shares the news during commissioner comments at the county meeting, thanking the governor's office and residents. Two public commenters respond to the reversal and press the county about ICE cooperation generally.
• June 26: Meuser's office says DHS, under Secretary Markwayne Mullin, confirmed the plans directly. Sen. John Fetterman issues a statement on the cancellation.
• July 22: The Shapiro administration announces DHS gave written confirmation that ICE "will not be using [either] Property as a detention center" and withdrew its appeals of the state's environmental orders, which makes those orders final. In its letters to the Department of Environmental Protection, ICE said it would keep the property at its existing water and sewage levels and gave no future use for the building.

The five-month fight, briefly

DHS finalized the $87.4 million purchase of the never-occupied warehouse at 3501 Mountain Road on February 2. Township officials said they learned of it after the fact; public reports put the planned capacity at up to 1,500 people; opposition in Berks and Schuylkill counties was bipartisan and loud. In March, Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection issued administrative orders barring DHS from occupying the site or connecting water and sewer until it complied with state environmental law, and Gov. Josh Shapiro met with local leaders. Whether the environmental blockade, the politics, or internal federal budgeting killed the plan is not established by the public record; the DHS document reported by the Times did not give site-by-site reasons.

Why Berks reacted the way it did

The county has its own history here: it owned and operated the Berks County Residential Center, a family detention facility that held immigrant families under contract with ICE for two decades until the arrangement ended and the center closed in early 2023. The new proposal revived that fight almost immediately, and the reversal lands as a win for the same coalition. The shuttered county center still appears as a zeroed-out line in the county's 2026 budget.

What to watch now

Two questions this report had been tracking are now settled. DHS put the cancellation in writing and withdrew its appeals on July 22, so the state's environmental orders stand and the companion site in Tremont, Schuylkill County, is closed out on the same terms. What remains open:

1. The building. A half-million-square-foot federal warehouse with no stated use. In its letters to the state, ICE said only that it would keep the property at its existing water and sewage levels. Sale, transfer to another agency, or a new use all remain possible, and any reuse runs through Upper Bern Township land-use processes this time.
2. County ICE-cooperation questions raised in public comment at back-to-back county meetings; here is how to raise yours.

We will update this report as the building's disposition becomes public.