County ends agreement to house immigration detainees

Author: 69 News, news@wfmz.com
Published On: Dec 06 2011 01:56:38 PM EST Updated On: Dec 06 2011 08:27:06 PM EST

BERN TOWNSHIP, Pa. -
The Berks County commissioners have sent a letter to the Dept. of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) letting them know that the county is ending its agreement to house federal immigration detainees at its Bern Township facility. The letter stated that the agreement would end in February 2012, but ICE officials requested it be extended until March 31, 2012, and commissioners agreed to that request.

Detainees were housed in the former Berks Heim building on County Welfare Road.

The closing of the facility will mean 60-70 county employees will lose their jobs. Republican commissioner Christian Leinbach said this was a hard decision to tell employees, especially around the holidays, but if they would have waited until after the holidays it would have only meant the employees would have had less time to deal with the news.

The commissioners said the former Berks Heim building is slated for demolition in the future because the cost to rehab it would be too much to make it worthwhile for the county. Because of this, the county had negotiating with ICE to move the facility to the former Heim Annex building, also in Bern Township.

Before those negotiations were finalized, the commissioners said ICE told the county that it was looking into moving the facility somewhere in the southwest part of the country. Based on that, the county decided to end its agreement with ICE at the end of the current lease.

Also housed in the building are the coroner's office and the Department of Veteran's Affairs. These county offices will be relocated before the building is demolished. Republican commissioner Mark Scott said the new locations for those offices will be announced soon.

Commissioners said the county made about $300,000 each year from the ICE agreement.

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