How the Lehigh Valley almost became home to an immigration detention center

UPPER MT. BETHEL TWP., Pa. — As President Donald Trump ramps up deportation efforts and ignites national debate over U.S. immigration policy, the Lehigh Valley has remained largely away from the front lines.

But that nearly wasn't the case.

Fifteen years ago, the GEO Group — one of the world's largest private prison companies — publicly considered building a detention center at what's now the River Point property on Marshfield Drive.

When fully built out, it could have held up to 2,750 immigrants awaiting deportation.

The plan drew intense opposition from the community, who questioned the company's human rights record and the project's potential impact on public safety.

GEO Group executives eventually opted to expand its Delany Hall facility in Newark, New Jersey, instead.

That's the same detention center where Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested this year while seeking a tour of the facility.

A federal judge later dismissed the charges and admonished the federal government for hastily arresting Baraka without carefully reviewing the evidence.

"I applaud the people of Upper Mount Bethel who did not want it here" Supervisor John Bermingham, who had not yet moved to the township when the project drew headlines, said in a recent interview.

"It's the people's town. They did speak up and they did speak out against having the prison here."

Massive property with little results

The River Point land has vexed developers and local government officials for years.

The 800-acre property is among the largest industrially zoned greenfields in the Lehigh Valley and potentially a lynchpin to developing rural Upper Mount Bethel Township.

For decades, it was a buffer zone for the now-shuttered Portland Generating Station. The coal-burning power plant shut down in 2014; the EPA ordered it to reduce emissions after studies found it was the primary source of air pollution in western New Jersey.

Developers have explored building warehouses and a compost facility at the site. More recently, Amazon Web Services considered constructing a data center there.

None has taken hold, though the board of supervisors unanimously approved a letter expressing their support for data centers on the property in the future.

The rugged, woodland terrain and the lack of an existing sewer hookup have limited interest in the past.

Opportunity and opposition

But GEO Group saw an opportunity in 2010.

At the time, ICE was looking to add more space to detain immigrants in the Northeast. River Point provided a secluded location just two miles from Interstate 80.

While no formal proposal was presented to the township, GEO officials met with township and county officials. Then-Northampton County Council President Ron Angle sponsored a resolution providing county support to the project.

Pushback mounted quickly when word reached township residents.

While GEO Group officials stressed it would not be a prison, most of the detainees would have recently completed criminal sentences in state or federal prisons. About 10% of the detainees would have been non-violent offenders housed in non-secure areas, they said.

GEO Group officials held a public forum at Bangor Area Middle School, where they attempted to assuage public concerns.

As a private corporation, they would contribute to the local tax base, they said.

When fully up and running, the facility would employ about 500 people, including guards, nurses and support staff. Hundreds more would have worked on its construction.

The presentation failed to win over the skeptical crowd. When GEO Group executives ended the meeting early without answering every question as promised, the audience booed them off the stage, chanting "No G-E-O!"

The detention center project quickly died out from there.

While Angle still viewed the project positively, he said he would respect his constituents wishes and worked to withdraw the county's support for the project.

Without a local sponsor, the township site never entered formal consideration. While Warren County, New Jersey, expressed interest in the project, ICE awarded the contract to GEO Group to expand its Newark location.

What would reaction be today?

Today, Angle said he wonders if it was a missed opportunity.

Even if the then-$180-million project took years to develop, the township and county would have collected millions of dollars in tax revenue generated by the site, he said. Hundreds of people would have steady work.

"If they had their choice right now, they would probably take the detention center over the data center," Angle mused in a recent interview.

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, the only member of county council then who still holds public office, doubted it.

McClure voted against the project, citing his opposition to privately run prisons.

But residents were right to have concerns about public safety, he said. Four detainees with criminal records recently escaped from Delany Hall last month, including one who remains on the lam.

"I think people of Upper Mount Bethel Township would absolutely oppose it," McClure said. "I can't imagine there's any public appetite for that now."