Pennsylvania Counties Cash In on ICE Detention While Trump Ramps Up Mass Deportations

Pennsylvania counties are making millions by turning their jails into holding pens for ICE, a Spotlight PA investigation reveals. And while the deals aren't new, they're taking on new urgency as Trump's mass deportation machine kicks into high gear.

Clinton, Erie, Franklin, and Pike Counties collectively charged more than $21 million for immigrant detention in 2024 and 2025 alone, according to invoices obtained by Spotlight PA. A fifth county, Cambria, has a similar arrangement but refused to disclose payment details because ICE didn't start sending people there until late September 2025.

These aren't simple detainer requests where ICE asks a jail to hold someone for a few extra days. These are full-blown detention agreements that let federal agents or deputized local officers arrest immigrants and warehouse them in county jails for months while their cases drag through the system. The jails get paid handsomely for the service.

County officials defend the arrangements as longstanding partnerships that fund essential services. Cambria County Commissioner Scott Hunt told Spotlight PA the relationship goes back years. "I realize that emotions are kind of flared now, but this is something we've been a part of for years, and I don't see a reason why it wouldn't continue," he said in early March.

Translation: We've been doing this forever, so why stop now that people are paying attention?

The money matters. At a February Erie County Council meeting, multiple speakers warned that ending the detention contract would cost the county half a million dollars. One speaker even suggested that pulling out might anger Trump himself.

But dozens of Erie residents showed up to oppose the agreement anyway. Sister Anne McCarthy with the Benedictine Sisters of Erie put it plainly: "We believe that participating in any way in the enhanced enforcement is immoral."

The timing couldn't be more fraught. The Department of Homeland Security recently purchased two Pennsylvania warehouses to convert into detention centers with a combined capacity of 9,000 people. Local lawmakers say they were blindsided by those plans and have limited power to stop them.

The jail detention agreements are different. They require approval from elected county leaders, prison oversight boards, or both. That means voters have leverage here that they don't have over federal warehouse purchases.

Spotlight PA identified the five counties through public records requests sent to more than 30 counties statewide, plus a review of federal detention data. The agreements operate through contracts with either the U.S. Marshals Service or directly with ICE.

A sixth county, Clearfield, has a different setup. It collects an administrative fee for acting as a middleman between ICE and a private prison contractor that runs the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, one of the largest immigrant detention facilities in the country.

Supporters of the jail agreements argue that ending them won't stop deportations. Federal agents will just send people to jails hundreds of miles away instead. And Pennsylvania counties will lose the revenue.

That's technically true. But it ignores the broader question: Should local governments profit from a system that separates families, detains people in inhumane conditions, and enables mass deportation?

At least one county official told Spotlight PA the payments have become so crucial that replacing them would require careful study and planning. Which raises an uncomfortable reality: Some Pennsylvania counties have built their budgets around immigrant detention revenue. They're financially invested in keeping people locked up.

The agreements also show how deeply local governments already cooperate with ICE, even before Trump's second-term crackdown. The infrastructure for mass detention was already in place. Trump is just using it more aggressively.

County jails aren't immigration detention centers. They're not designed for long-term holds or the unique legal limbo of immigration proceedings. But under these agreements, they function as exactly that, with counties collecting per-diem fees for every person they hold.

The pushback in Erie shows that residents are starting to connect the dots between local policy decisions and Trump's deportation agenda. The question is whether elected officials will listen or keep cashing the checks.