Updated 6:15 p.m. Aug. 21, 2025.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 25 men while they were on their way to work at a Centre County construction site on Tuesday morning, according to a coalition of local and statewide immigrant rights organizations.
The arrests appear to be the largest roundup of immigrant workers in the county since the Trump administration took office in January and began a nationwide crackdown. ICE did not respond to StateCollege.com’s requests for comment this week.
Each of the men — who were nationals from Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras — were workers at the Mount Nittany Medical Center patient tower construction site, according to the Centre County Rapid Response Network, a group of local individuals who operate a hotline and verify ICE sightings with the aim of “protecting immigrant communities against deportation threats.”
“Their lives are upended with no due process, no warrant,” Kate, a CCRRN organizer and local clergy member who asked that her last name not be used, told StateCollege.com earlier this week. “Laws are not being followed by our government. Everyone should be concerned about that.”
The regional office of the construction management firm overseeing the Mount Nittany project did not respond to a request for comment. A Mount Nittany spokesperson declined to answer questions.
“As this incident did not occur on Mount Nittany Health property, we do not have information to share and will not be providing further comment,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
The men were taken to facilities in Clinton and Pike counties and the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, Kate said during a virtual press conference with several immigrant rights groups on Thursday morning.
“We are working to be in touch with individual family members so that we can help them figure out what the next steps are and what’s needed, but they have been spread across our commonwealth,” Kate said.
John, who identified himself as a foreman on the Mount Nittany construction project and did not provide his last name, said that as he did most mornings, he picked up several workers from the hotel where they were staying and went for coffee before heading to work. While en route to the site, they were pulled over on Interstate 99 by an unmarked van and SUV, he said.
An ICE agent approached the vehicle and asked John and the other men in the car for identification, he said.
“[Agents] started taking people out one by one and asking them… where they were from, if they had a work permit,” John, a U.S. citizen who was not taken into custody, said. “They said ‘Oh well we’ll make sure that’s legit’ and zip tied their arms behind their back and took them out one by one into their van. After all the guys were out they closed the door. They said ‘all right have a nice day’ …Many of those guys had IDs, have work permits and were still detained.”
Later in the day, John said he was contacted by one of the men to pick him up in Williamsport. He said the man was released after he was the only one in the group to refuse to sign self-deportation papers. He added that his understanding is most of the other men will be deported.
Garrett Allison, an attorney, witnessed a separate incident on Route 220 near Milesburg and stopped in an attempt to provide legal advice to three men who were in ICE custody with their hands zip tied on the side of the road. In a video he recorded and shared on social media, Allison crossed the road and tried to talk to the men, but he does not speak fluent Spanish and the men did not appear to understand him.
Agents wearing vests bearing “ERO” — ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division — told Allison it was illegal to walk on a highway in Pennsylvania and that he needed to “stay back” from the detainees but did not actively stop him from trying to speak to the men.
John and Allison both said they believed Pennsylvania State Police assisted in the stops, and organizers pointed to one law enforcement officer in the video that they said appeared to be a state trooper.
A spokesperson for state police Troop G, which includes Centre County, denied that troopers were involved.
“The Pennsylvania State Police had no involvement with any ICE activity in Centre County,” the spokesperson said.
The Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition, which organized Thursday’s press conference, says it has been in a “months-long discussion” with Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration about limiting the commonwealth’s cooperation with ICE.
Vivian Chang, executive director of Asian Americans United, a member of PIC, said the groups have “outlined several steps for [Shapiro] to take to make Pennsylvania safe.”
Those include:
- Removing ICE access to state databases unless a judicial warrant has been issued
- Ending state prison and probation data sharing and collaboration
- Prohibiting state police from contacting ICE or providing assistance for enforcement efforts
- Not leasing state facilities to ICE
- Only collecting and sharing information that is “absolutely necessary” from Pennsylvania public benefit programs
- Prohibiting ICE arrests without a warrant in state facilities
- Prioritizing a “driver’s licenses for all bill,” that would allow individuals to obtain state ID with a taxpayer identification number instead of Social Security number
- Issuing statements and publicly welcoming refugees and asylum seekers to Pennsylvania
- Developing public messaging about current policies on immigrant access to health care and other public programs.
“Now, this may sound like a long list, and yet so many of things are already in place in many of our towns, many of our cities and in many other states,” Chang said. “So if Governor Shapiro really wants Pennsylvania to be a leader in this country, and he wants to be a leader for our state, this is the bare minimum.”
In Centre County, CCRRN has trained 120 rapid responders since February to document ICE arrests and report them to the network, which will try to connect the detainees to immigration lawyers.
According to CCRRN, workers at the Mount Nittany construction project reported that in the days leading up to raid they suspected ICE had been surveilling the site, and that dozens did not show up for work on Tuesday out of fear of being detained.
“People are disappearing. That’s a problem. The state disappearing people is a problem,” Kate, the CCRRN organizer, said. “That we aren’t talking about it is a problem. Unnecessary fear is a problem and keeps the community from living full, productive lives.”
The network is collaborating with the People’s Defense Front – Northern Appalachia and the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity to patrol areas they believe ICE may be surveilling.
“We care because this injustice, it doesn’t end with 25 individuals and their families,” Kate said. “It ripples through the workforce. It ripples through the community. These men are more than just workers. They’re partners and sons. They’re brothers and fathers. Households have again been torn apart. Fear spreads like a virus, keeping people shut up in their homes. With schools opening next week across our county, how many children will go to school every day focusing less on their schoolwork than on whether their parents will be waiting for them at the end of the day.
“We believe that unless everyone is safe, no one is safe, and that we thrive together. Our futures are intertwined, and so we must fight for our communities and for all of our rights. We’re in this together.
Local labor leader Connor Lewis, president of Seven Mountains AFL-CIO, said that “abducting workers on their way to build an expansion for community medical facilities is obscene” and called on local and federal officials to see that the detainees receive due process.
“The detainees must be given their full rights and due process under the law, and we demand that all local and federal officials for Centre County work to ensure that their rights are upheld and that federal agents are held accountable for any abuse of their authority,” Lewis said in a statement. “The time for equivocation is over, and we’ll remember the choices that leaders make in this critical moment.”
Russell Frank contributed to this report.
