Pennsylvania Dems visit ICE detention center

May 28, 2026

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Good afternoon everyone,

It’s Thursday, May 28, and welcome back to another edition of the Keystone Labor Report. You can find Tuesday’s edition here.

It’s going to be a shorter edition, since I was on the road traveling today.

I went to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, which is located roughly 30 minutes outside of State College, to report on US Reps. Summer Lee’s and Chris Deluzio’s unannounced visit to the center. More on that below.

Sean Kitchen

Political Correspondent, The Keystone

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

With the Pennsylvania budget due in a little more than one month, labor leaders and lawmakers are calling upon the Pennsylvania General Assembly to include a cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase for retirees who left working for the commonwealth prior to the legislature overhauling the pension system in 2001.

There are more than 54,000 Pre-Act 9 retirees in Pennsylvania, most of whom are in their 80s, and 90s, who haven’t received a COLA increase in more than 20 years, forcing them to decide on how they’re going to pay their medical bills or where they’re going to find their next meals.

“ When we started this fight for COLA, there were over 60,000 who would benefit from that,” Maurice Cobb, Secretary-Treasurer of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said during a press conference on Wednesday.

“ These folks should not be forgotten. They’ve been working hard all of their lives, and … their average pension yearly is $20,000. Let that settle in for a minute.”

Columbia Borough, located in York County, voted to reject a $6.35 million bid for a local data center site after hundreds of residents packed a council meeting to air their concerns, per Lancaster Online.
Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed his data center standards that he proposed in his budget earlier this year. Developers will still be allowed to build data centers if they don’t adhere to the standards, but they will lose state support, per WVIA News.
US Reps. Chris Deluzio (D-Allegheny) and Summer Lee (D-Allegheny) introduced legislation this week that financially holds accountable owners of abandoned coal mines that pollute waterways, per the Pennsylvania Capital Star.

(Sean Kitchen / The Keystone)

Earlier today, I drove out to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility, where US Reps. Summer Lee (D-Allegheny) and Chris Deluzio (D-Allegheny) made an unannounced visit to the tour center.

Lee, who has called for the center’s closure due to unsafe living conditions for the detainees, was denied entry into the facility last year despite being legally allowed to conduct an oversight visit.

However, a recent ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from requiring members of Congress to give seven days of advanced notice to visit these ICE facilities.

Thursday’s trip to Moshannon by Lee and Deluzio put the latest court ruling to the test where they were granted entry to the facility.

“ We came in unannounced to exercise our oversight responsibility, to show up unannounced and to inspect and get a tour,” Deluzio told reporters following the tour.

He added, “ We didn’t have staff who could interpret for us, and there are a significant number of Spanish speakers in this facility, as you can imagine, so it limits our ability to really do oversight.”