The closing of the Berks County Detention Center is a victory - for immigrants, for the community of Berks County, and for the state of Pennsylvania. We rejoice in this long-awaited victory, but the harmful legacy of Berks continues still. If the Biden Administration is to uphold justice for immigrants, then we demand that it immediately release all current detainees and repurpose the facility into a space that provides services to the surrounding community.

The Berks County Detention Center began incarcerating women in 2022, but its history is littered with human rights abuses, shameful neglect, and the violation of detainees’ bodies and spirits. Before the 2022 contract, it was used to imprison immigrant families - including children. These families fled government persecution and domestic violence and were greeted with an American prison. At Berks,children were ignored while sick with parasites, families were forced to huddle together without heat during winter, and traumatized children suffered from nightmares and depression. A mother was repeatedly sexually assaulted, an abuse that was even witnessed by other mothers and children. Conditions in this facility (which operated without a license for several years) became so bad that in 2016 detainees resorted to a hunger strike to demand better treatment. This is the facility where women continue to be held for the “crime” of seeking asylum.

The Shut Down Berks Coalition demands that the Biden Administration release every woman still being detained at the Berks facility. To repair the decades of harm done, it should repurpose Berks as a space where services are provided and the community can thrive. If the Biden Administration says that it supports human rights and access to liberty, then it must take these steps and work to right the wrongs endured in this facility.