City Council on Thursday formally honored a Philadelphia-born Palestinian American who was killed last month by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
In a unanimous voice vote, Philadelphia lawmakers passed a resolution to celebrate the life of 19-year-old Nasrallah Abu Siyam, who was fatally shot during a violent clash in a village on Feb. 18, the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Members of Abu Siyam’s family appeared in Council chambers Thursday alongside representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who called for an independent U.S.-led investigation into the killing.
“You don’t know what it means to live under occupation. You don’t know what these settlers are doing,” said Abdelhamid Siyam, Nasrallah Abu Siyam’s uncle. “When justice is attacked, silence is treason. … We should stand together and pressure all those elected officials to stand with justice.”
City Councilmember Rue Landau, a Democrat who authored the honorary resolution in partnership with Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, said Thursday that other members of Abu Siyam’s family are trapped in the Middle East after flying there after his death.
They are unable to travel home, she said, due to the ongoing war in Iran and restrictions on airspace.
Landau also called on the U.S. State Department and the Department of Justice to “conduct a full investigation and pursue justice for Nasrallah.”
“We demand accountability so that no other family here or abroad has to stand where this family stands now,” she said during a later event alongside Abu Siyam’s family.
Thirty U.S. senators signed a letter to President Donald Trump’s administration Thursday calling for an independent investigation into Abu Siyam’s killing. Pennsylvania’s two senators, Republican Dave McCormick and Democrat John Fetterman, did not sign it.
Here’s what else happened in Council on Thursday.
What was the highlight?
Prioritizing transit-oriented development: Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is pushing Council to approve a package of legislation that makes it easier to build apartment buildings near SEPTA stations, measures that proponents see as a way to boost ridership and increase the city’s housing stock.
Parker transmitted a package of zoning bills to Council on Thursday, but no member formally introduced it. Members said they saw the legislation for the first time on Wednesday and want more time to review it before introduction.
Mayor Cherelle Parker (center) rides the SEPTA Market-Frankford Line to an event in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Pa. on Thursday, April 11, 2024.
The bills are aimed at advancing Parker’s goal to build, preserve, and repair 30,000 housing units.
Most crucially, one bill expands an existing law that says properties within 500 feet of a Council-designated SEPTA station can receive benefits allowing developers to build more homes. Parker’s legislation increases the radius to 1,320 feet, or a quarter of a mile.
What else happened?
Smoke-filled doom: Lawmakers continued their crusade against smoke shops and so-called nuisance businesses Thursday, with Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson bringing legislation to hold commercial landlords accountable for renting to illegal smoke shops.
This file photo shows a city smoke shop exterior on the 1000 block of Chestnut Street in July. City Council has advanced several pieces of legislation aimed at curbing smoke shops.
Gilmore Richardson introduced a second bill to establish a new license requirement for stores selling products like hemp-based THC and kratom. The ordinance would define the products as “intoxicating substances” and establish a 21-plus age minimum.
What’s next?
Block off your calendar: Next week will be a busy one. Parker is scheduled to deliver her annual budget address to Council on Thursday, when she will outline her vision for the coming year.
The speech will kick off weeks of hearings before Council, when members will have the opportunity to question administration officials from every major department, as well as the leaders of other agencies that receive city dollars, including the city courts, the district attorney, and the Philadelphia School District.
Quote of the week
Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson questioning Dr. Tony Watlington, Superintendent of School District of Philadelphia, during a hearing with board members of School District of Philadelphia, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026.
A little school district shade: That was Council President Kenyatta Johnson chiming in on an effort to rename a North Philadelphia street after the late Constance E. Clayton, Philadelphia’s first Black and female schools superintendent.
The Montgomery County commissioners further limited the county’s cooperation with ICE on Thursday when they passed a resolution restricting federal immigration enforcement from using county property or resources for noncriminal investigations.
The measure approved by the Democratic-controlled board bars U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement from using county resources for various purposes, including as staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases related to civil immigration operations.
“We’ve seen it elsewhere — the violence, the fear, the separation of families. We want to make sure that here in Montgomery County, we’re doing everything we can to make sure all of our residents can continue to access essential services and live their lives safely,” said Commissioner Jamila Winder, the Democrat who chairs the board.
Jamila H. Winder, Chair, Montgomery County Commissioners on Thursday, March 5, 2026.
The resolution comes as immigration stakeholders in the county have been pushing the commissioners to take further action to protect residents from ICE enforcement as President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda continues to escalate.
Much of the tension occurred under the leadership of Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary whom Trump fired Thursday.
Calls for action escalated nationally in January after federal agents killed U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. In Montgomery County, ICE has carried out numerous operations, especially in communities with high numbers of Latino residents, such as Norristown, the county seat.
“Let me be clear: The county does not have authority over the federal government’s actions over civil immigration enforcement, and we still do not have the authority over the courts, other elected officials, municipalities, townships, or their law enforcement officers,” Winder said. “That remains unchanged, but what has changed is the environment we’re in.”
The policy to block ICE from using county resources passed 2-1 with Commissioner Tom DiBello, the board’s sole Republican, voting no.
The measure codifies that the county will not enter into a 287(g) agreement, which would allow ICE to use county resources, and that county employees will not comply in federal civil immigration operations without a judicial warrant or subpoena.
Lydia Villalba, 27, of Souderton, Pa., (right), holds a sign saying “Ice Fuera De Norristown” meaning Ice out of Norristown, during a rally to support immigrants in Norristown, Pa., on Saturday, June 7, 2025.
It does not prohibit ICE from purchasing warehouses for detention centers, as the agency has done in Berks and Schuylkill Counties.
Montgomery County’s resolution denying ICE access to its buildings and lands follows a national trend among Democratic-led jurisdictions. The move has both symbolic and practical impacts.
First, it enables the county government to publicly make clear its opposition and noncooperation. And second, ICE can need big spaces to set up officers, cars, and equipment for operations; banning the use of potential staging areas can complicate the agency’s logistics.
Montgomery County’s Department of Assets and Infrastructure will post signage on county-owned property noting that the area cannot be used for purposes not approved by the county, according to the resolution. Private property owners who wish to restrict civil immigration enforcement activity on their properties can request signs for free.
Megan Alt, a spokesperson for the county, said the hope is that ICE will comply with county law. But if not, the county is prepared to handle violations as it would for any other instances of trespassing.
Thomas DiBello, Commissioner, Montgomery County Commissioners on Thursday, March 5, 2026.
DiBello, the lone GOP commissioner, said his opposition has “nothing to do with politics” and criticized the resolution’s references to ICE-related incidents that took place outside Montgomery County. He also said he was concerned that private property owners who do not post signs restricting ICE action on their properties will be targeted as a consequence.
“What’s going to happen then? Is there doxing going to occur? Is there protests outside of businesses?” he asked.
Commissioner Neil Makhija, the board’s vice chair, said the resolution “has nothing to with immigration policy,” but rather was about limiting cooperation with an agency that has used extreme tactics. He cited an ICE arrest last month in Lower Providence Township in which agents broke down a family’s front door.
DiBello responded that Makhija was engaging in “political positioning.”
In the Philadelphia region and elsewhere, ICE’s use of government property has long rankled immigration advocates, who say it amounts to cooperation on the part of local leaders.
For instance, Philadelphia City Council is poised to consider a package of “ICE Out” legislation that would bar the agency from staging or conducting enforcement on property owned or controlled by the city — including garages, parking lots, vacant land, buses, playgrounds, and schools.
Winder said Thursday that Montgomery County’s resolution is not some “newfound desire” to limit cooperation.
“Yes, we have our political affiliations, but we also know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil,” she said.
Pennsylvania voters broadly oppose some of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics — but there’s a stark partisan split, according to a new statewide poll of registered voters.
Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research released a wide-ranging poll Thursday that tracked registered Pennsylvania voters’ opinions on America’s 250th anniversary, ICE enforcement tactics, and other issues facing the state and nation ahead of the midterm election.
Trump’s approval ratings have remained consistently low since returning to office last year, with a majority of Pennsylvanians disapproving of his job as president.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro maintains a 50% approval rating heading into the midterm elections later this year.
Pollsters at Franklin & Marshall College surveyed 834 registered Pennsylvania voters, including 353 Democrats, 347 Republicans and 134 independents. The sample error is +/- 4.1 percentage points.
Here are three takeaways from the poll of registered Pennsylvania voters, conducted Feb. 18 through March 1 by phone or online.
Trump is consistently unpopular in Pennsylvania
Trump’s approval ratings among registered Pennsylvania voters remain low, with 61% of voters rating him as doing a “poor” or “fair” job, according to the statewide poll, which also assessed Trump’s performance on immigration, the economy, and other issues.
Trump maintained a net negative approval rating throughout his first term in 2017-2021 and so far in his second term, according to the poll.
Despite winning the state in 2024, he remains divisive with 51% of respondents rating him as doing a “poor” job, and only 10% who rate him as doing a “fair” job. Approximately 39% of registered Pennsylvania voters view Trump as doing an “excellent” or “good” job, according to the poll.
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Trump’s low approval numbers could have a drag effect on Republicans’ performance in the midterm election, said Berwood Yost, the director of Franklin & Marshall’s poll.
“While there’s still a long way to go until November, [Trump has] got to figure out a way and his party has to find a way to prevent that and earn those voters back,” Yost said.
Trump’s low numbers align with those of former President Barack Obama or George W. Bush’s approvals at the same point in their second term, Yost added. Both of their parties lost seats in the midterms elections those years.
However, Trump’s approval ratings are not the lowest they have been in the state. His approval ratings dropped to their lowest, 70% disapproval, during his first term in September 2017.
Josh Shapiro is still popular
Gov. Josh Shapiro remains popular ahead of his reelection contest this year: 50% of Pennsylvania voterssayhe is doing an “excellent” or “good job,” while another 44% believe he is doing a “fair” or “poor” job leading the nation’s fifth most populous state.
Shapiro is the most popular governor since 2000, when comparing his approval ratings to those of other Pennsylvania governors at the same point during their first terms, Yost said.
Shapiro also maintains a significant lead over his likely GOP challenger, State Treasurer Stacy Garrity. If the midterm elections were to happen today, 48% of voters said they would reelect Shapiro, while 28% said they would vote for Garrity. Another 7% of voters said they would vote for a different candidate, while 17% were undecided or refused to answer the question.
Shapiro’s approval ratings have remained steadily high since taking office in January 2023. A Quinnipiac Universitypoll released last month found similar public opinion toward Shapiro’s reelection, while some voters said they were unsure whether they wanted the rumored 2028 presidential candidate to run for higher office.
Pa. voters broadly oppose some of ICE’s enforcement actions, but are split on others
Approximately three-fourths of Pennsylvania voters believe ICE should not be able to use deadly force against protesters or enter a home without a warrant, in a major pushback to Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics.
Pennsylvania voters’ opinions on immigration enforcement varies significantly based on a person’s political party: While nine in 10 Republicans support ICE tactics, only two in five independents and one in 10 Democrats support them.
Protesters march up Eighth Street, towards the immigration offices, during the Philly stands with Minneapolis Ice Out For Good protest at Philadelphia’s City Hall on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.
Republicans support ICE’s use of unmarked vehicles to detain people and their use of masks to hide an agent’s identity at much higher rates than Democrats, while independents are split. On the use of masks, 77% of Republican voters believe agents should be able to wear them, while 40% of independents and only 10% of Democrats do.
“There’s a lot of consensus about the fundamental principles that protect our individual rights like entering a home without a warrant or using force against protesters, whereas there’s a little more partisanship in others,” Yost said.
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There is also overwhelming support among Pennsylvania voters that non-citizens who are in the U.S. legally — whether by visa,green card, asylum or other protected statuses, or in the process of becoming a citizen — should not be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation, according to the poll.
However, a majority of Republicans and independent voters believe undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States illegally for any amount of time and have no criminal record should be targeted for deportation, while less than a quarter of Democrats believe they should.
Pennsylvania voters want the 250th anniversary to acknowledge the positives and negatives from American history
As Trump tries to reframe American history for the nation’s 250th anniversary, most Pennsylvanians want the celebrations to acknowledge its positive and negative parts.
Approximately 73% of Pennsylvania voters believe any retelling of American history should include the upsides and downsides of the nation’s founding, while 24% believe only positive aspects should be celebrated.
“Most people, they want to see historical interpretations that include the whole picture,” Yost said.
This finding is of particular interest in Pennsylvania, following the Trump administration’s removal of an exhibit that memorialized the enslaved people who lived in George Washington’s home from the historic President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park. A federal judge ordered the restoration of the exhibit, but the Trump administration is appealing the decision.
The eastern sky is aglow with dawn streaks of orange when the cry of a whistle sounds outside of ICE headquarters in Philadelphia.
The noise pierces amid an improvised orchestra of protest, as chanting demonstrators shake tambourines, rattle jingle sticks, and beat drums ― one person banged on a kitchen colander ― to create a clamor that makes it challenging to concentrate.
That’s part of the goal of the weekly “Noise Demo” organized by No ICE Philly to raise awareness among morning commuters but also to try to disrupt the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Eighth and Cherry Street office.
“We’re interrupting them,” said a protest leader who asked to be identified only as a member of No ICE Philly out of fear of repercussion from the government.
For advocacy groups here and across the county, the whistle has become both a tool and symbol of the anti-ICE movement.
On the streets, it’s the means to alert neighbors and warn immigrants when ICE arrives on the block, and to try to distract and confuse officers who may already be operating in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
A blast from a standard pea whistle can carry half a mile, and the sound from a specialized emergency whistle can travel a mile or more, depending on conditions.
ICE officials in Philadelphia said last week they had nothing to add on the noise demonstrations or on the use of whistles, beyond what the agency had already said: “Your whistles won’t stop or hinder ICE from arresting criminal illegal alien sex abusers, murderers, gang members, and more,” the agency told Minnesota protesters on social media.
In November, President Donald Trump issued a ban ― so far blocked by the courts ― on creating “loud or unusual noises” at federal facilities in the U.S. That hasn’t slowed No ICE Philly, which gathers to make noise on Mondays, though the snowfall pushed a recent action to Thursday.
“Maybe,” said activist Huston West, who blasted a steady beat on his whistle as ICE officers arrived at work on Thursday, “it makes them think about their life choices.”
A man who tried to confront demonstrators is engaged by a Homeland Security officer during a No Ice Philly “Noise Demo” outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 114 N. Eighth Street in Center City.
Why have whistles become so popular among immigration protesters?
Many reasons.
Whistles are light, portable, reliable ― and cheap, about 20 cents each when bought in bulk. They don’t need batteries or recharging, have no buttons or controls. Everyone knows how to make it work.
To him, protesters’ use of whistles carries symbolism, summoning images of referees calling penalties during sports events. Maybe the activists are saying ICE has broken the rules or needs to stop.
“Like throwing a penalty flag,” he said, “against ICE agents who they deem are acting unlawfully.”
The whistle ranks among the oldest human inventions, the first ones crafted from bone, wood, or clay, used for hunting, signaling, and religious rites.
Englishman Joseph Hudson is considered the inventor of the modern pea whistle ― the tiny ball in the air chamber produces the trill ― in the 1880s. He created the Metropolitan Police whistle for British bobbies and the Acme Thunderer for soccer referees, who to that point had waved handkerchiefs to signal fouls.
Today, hundreds of thousands of whistles have been distributed to ICE protesters around the country ― more than 150,000 sent from Chicago alone, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In Minneapolis, activists have used 3D printers to crank out supplies. In Philadelphia, whistles have been given out by the handful at organizing meetings. Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel ordered 300 whistles for distribution, so neighbors can quickly signal that ICE is present and warn immigrants to seek safety.
The interior lobby of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at 114 N. Eighth St. in Center City.
The Trump administration wants to ban loud noises outside federal facilities, a move widely seen as an effort to halt protests at ICE offices. A federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the restrictions, saying they said could violate the First Amendment by criminalizing free speech.
But even among pro-immigration activists, not everyone sees whistles as consistently beneficial.
Some think the noise adds to the confusion at the scenes of ICE arrests, increasing fear and anxiety among families during what are already tense and sometimes violent encounters.
New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, a major advocacy organization, has begun talking to other groups about finding alternatives to whistles, said co-director Blanca Pacheco.
Yes, she said, it’s important that arrests not be permitted to be carried out in silence. But “what is the kind of noise that people can come up with that is supportive, instead of adding to the trauma?”
Not all in immigrant communities understand the purpose of the whistles, she said. And for those who have survived war or torture the noise can be triggering.
One option may be that people could shout, “ICE is here!” Perhaps two or three people on a block could be designated to blow whistles, rather than everyone at once. Even singing could work, she said.
“I think that Chicago and Minnesota and other places that have used the whistles had to come up with tactics and strategy very quickly,” said Pacheco, who noted Philadelphia is not in that position. “We can learn from other places what has worked and what has not. I think whistles can be used in some scenarios, not all the scenarios.”
Outside the ICE office on Thursday, two ICE agents heading into the building jawed with demonstrators who yelled at them to quit their jobs. Whistle calls and drum beats continued on, toward an 8 a.m. conclusion.
“ICE operates from the very early morning into early afternoon,” said the demonstration leader who declined to give his name. “We just want to make sure that we’re here when they’re here.”
The nonpartisan Economy League of Greater Philadelphia issued an immigration analysis this week that on the surface might look like a boatload of numbers, but in fact offers fresh insight and a warning about the future.
The organization looked at immigration not just as the coming and going of people but also as a key part of the city’s economic infrastructure.
Immigrants comprise nearly one in five workers and contribute $7.4 billion in consumer spending, filling critical roles in everything from research labs to restaurant kitchens.
Still, the analysis said, without ever mentioning President Donald Trump by name, “the federal policy pressures continue to mount,” and that puts some local gains at risk.
How crucial are immigrants to the city’s population growth?
“It is the only reason we’ve grown,” said league executive director Jeff Hornstein. “It’s the only reason we don’t have population decline.”
The analysis said that without foreign-born residents, Philadelphia would be shrinking.
As of 2024, immigrants comprised 16% of the city population, about 251,000 residents, the primary engine of net population growth since 2000. The arrival of newcomers has been enough to offset the loss in native-born residents, which dropped by about 59,700 between 2010 and 2020.
“Philadelphia’s 21st-century demographic stabilization,” the analysis said, “is an immigration story.”
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How much do immigrants contribute?
A lot. In Philadelphia, immigrants comprised nearly 20% of the workforce in 2024. That’s double the rate of Pennsylvania as a whole, where immigrants were 9% of the workforce. The city’s institutional anchors — its universities and hospitals — as well as established ethnic communities, serve as draws.
That year the city’s foreign-born residents, both documented and undocumented, spent an estimated $7.4 billion on goods and services and paid $2.3 billion in taxes ― including federal income taxes, payroll taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes.
Do some industries depend on immigrants more than others?
Yes. Local healthcare services rely not just on doctors, the analysis showed, but also on immigrants across different jobs and skill levels. About 26% of all Pennsylvania physicians are foreign-born, and nationally the same is true for nearly 40% of nursing aides and home health aides.
In the Philadelphia region, foreign students earn 40% of doctoral degrees, the report said, and research institutions depend heavily on that talent. Traditionally these students transition from F-1 visas, to Optional Practical Training, then compete for H-1B visas that enable long-term employment.
That’s where things have gotten rough for immigrants, as in December the Trump administration halted processing for several groups of people and categories of applications, including those for anyone from any of the 19 countries covered in the spring travel ban.
The administration has also raised the possibility of reopening cases that were already approved by the government.
The city’s hospitality and restaurant trades also depend on foreign-born workers. Immigrants make up 25% to 30% of restaurant workers and 30% to 35% of hotel staff. At some restaurants the foreign-born staff can exceed 40%.
Don’t many immigrants opt to work for themselves, starting their own businesses?
In Philadelphia, foreign-born entrepreneurs own roughly 30% of small businesses ― nearly twice their representation in the population. Those 47,800 businesses include everything from corner stores to tech startups.
So what’s the bad news?
It’s more like a warning. At 16%, Philadelphia’s foreign-born population exceeds the national average, which hovers around 13%. But traditional gateway cities like New York, Houston, Miami, and San Francisco maintain foreign-born populations as high as 35%.
Philadelphia, the analysis said, is “no longer an immigration laggard,” but it’s not yet competing with top-tier global cities for international talent.
Moreover, without sustained immigration, Philadelphia faces the prospect of renewed population decline. Native-born residents are aging, fertility remains below replacement levels, and U.S. domestic migration favors metro areas in the Sunbelt.
“Immigration provides the only plausible mechanism for population stability,” the study said, but federal policies that reduce legal immigration, slow visa processing, and intensify enforcement risk causing the opposite.
The question isn’t whether Philadelphia needs immigration ― the demographic math makes that undeniable, the study said. The question is whether policymakers will embrace supportive policies and investments.
“Given the stakes,” it said, “getting immigration policy right isn’t optional ― it’s existential.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro met with leaders in Berks and Schuylkill Counties on Thursday as the communities confront the planned federal conversion of two warehouses into ICE detention centers, and the governor pledged to do everything possible to block the Trump administration’s plans in Pennsylvania.
Shapiro, a Democrat who first publicly announced his opposition to the potential detention centers earlier this month, cited concerns over the impact on local economies, water resources, and residents’ quality of life.
Government warehouse purchases around the country, undertaken as part of a massive ICE expansion of detention capability, have sparked anger, lawsuits — and, in one instance, a suspected arson, when someone attempted to burn down a property in Arizona.
“I’m even more determined to do everything in my power to stop these facilities,” Shapiro said Thursday at a news conference in Berks County.
He spoke on the same day that New Jersey’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Andy Kim and Cory Booker, introduced legislation to ban the federal government from buying or converting warehouses for immigrant detention or processing.
“People across the country are standing up against this inhumanity, and Congress needs to stand with them,” Kim said in a statement.
Shapiro offered few details on how the state government could block the facilities, citing possible legal or regulatory action.
The governor, who is running for reelection, has been increasingly vocal in his opposition to ICE tactics even as his administration retains some cooperation with the agency. Earlier this month, Shapiro wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promising to “aggressively pursue every option” to block the detention centers from opening in Pennsylvania.
Expanding warehouses
The ICE effort to buy and repurpose warehouses as detention centers has quickly become one of the most contentious issues in immigration enforcement.
The ability to confine and process huge numbers of immigrants is essential to President Donald Trump’s promise to carry out an unprecedented deportation campaign. The number of people currently held has already reached historic highs, topping 70,000 this year, and the administration says it needs more space.
But as Trump’s plan has become public, opposition has been both immediate and fierce. Immigrant advocates call the warehouses “concentration camps” and question how buildings that were built to store consumer and industrial goods can safely and humanely hold thousands of people.
ICE expects to spend $38.3 billion to buy and retrofit warehouses around the nation.
Sixteen buildings would be converted into regional processing centers, each holding 1,000 to 1,500 immigrants. An additional eight detention centers would hold 7,000 to 10,000 detainees and serve as primary sites for deportations.
Shapiro on Thursday sought to send a clear signal to federal officials that he would fight any facilities in Pennsylvania. Following his news conference, Shapiro posted a video to Twitter declaring that Noem “will hear us in Pennsylvania.”
Standing outside the proposed facility location in Berks County, Shapiro outlined the impact detention facilities would have on local communities ― including increased pollution in Berks County and draining of water resources in Schuylkill County.
“I’m pissed,” Shapiro said. “And I’m not going to allow this to happen.”
“If you continue to go forward here, you will face legal and regulatory consequences,” he warned federal officials.
In Bucks County earlier this month, commissioners said that the federal government recently approached warehouse owners in Bensalem Township and Middletown Township about converting the buildings to ICE facilities. Neither owner is going forward with a sale, they said.
In Maryland, Democratic Attorney General Anthony Brown has sued the Trump administration to try to stop plans to hold 1,500 immigrants in a warehouse near Williamsport, about eight miles south of the Pennsylvania border.
Brown and Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore say the project is unlawful, going forward without an environmental review or public input.
ICE purchased the warehouse for $102.4 million in January, the property built as a commercial facility with 825,620 square feet of warehouse space, minimal office facilities, four toilets, and two water fountains, according to the attorney general.
The 1,500 immigrants held there would nearly equal the population of Williamsport, home to about 2,000 people.
Farther south, in Wilson County, Tenn., ICE is examining a two-building complex that would hold a combined 14,000 to 16,000 immigrants, by far the largest immigration detention center in the country, according to Project Salt Box, a Baltimore-based group that tracks ICE warehouse activity.
This month in Surprise, Ariz., someone tried to burn down a warehouse that ICE bought to turn into a 1,500-bed detention center, but the fire was quickly extinguished by the interior sprinkler system, the Arizona Mirror reported, quoting federal officials.
The plan to create a fixed, large-scale network of converted warehouses represents a radical new approach to immigration detention.
Historically, the American Immigration Council noted, ICE’s detention funding has gone almost entirely to contract providers, the private prison companies and state and local governments that lease facilities to the agency. As of February 2025, ICE owned only 10 of the 220 facilities being used to detain immigrants, the council said.
Now, ICE seeks to reengineer a detention system that was not centrally planned, but emerged over decades as Congress gradually increased agency funding, the council said.
ICE currently operates five detention facilities in Pennsylvania, including the 1,876-bed Moshannon Valley Processing Center, the largest detention center in the Northeast. Two more are located in New Jersey, in Elizabeth and Newark, and the Trump administration has been exploring adding a third at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Like most of his Rohingya people — stripped of citizenship by Myanmar’s ruling junta and targeted by a brutal 2017 genocide — Nurul Amin Shah Alam and his family spent the last decade yearning to breathe free.
A nomadic quest for liberty took Shah Alam, his wife, and the two youngest of his six children through the crowded camps of Bangladesh, on a boat escape to Malaysia, and finally to apparent refuge in the United States on Christmas Eve 2024.
But the 56-year-old immigrant was almost never free on American soil.
In February 2025, just 53 days after his family arrived in the refugee hub of Buffalo, Shah Alam — nearly blind, apparently lost, and using a curtain rod as a walking stick — found himself in an encounter with Buffalo police. He was tased during a scuffle that ended with the refugee charged with felony assault.
After one year behind bars and a plea deal, relatives paid his bail on Feb. 19, and then waited for hours at the Erie County, N.Y., lockup, only to learn he’d instead been handed over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on an immigration detainer.
During a frantic, five-day search on the streets of one of America’s coldest big cities, Shah Alam’s family and supporters were stunned to learn that Border Patrol agents — apparently after learning the stateless refugee could not be legally deported — drove this disabled and nearly sightless man with no phone to a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop and dumped him there, five miles from his family’s home.
As reactions and questions continue to surface over the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a visually impaired man who spent time in Border Patrol custody and was found dead Tuesday night, directions from the reported drop-off spot and where he was found place the two locations more…
“He never had freedom in his life,” Imran Fazal, a leader of the Rohingya diaspora in Buffalo who knows his family, told me by phone Wednesday night. “He came to this country because he wanted to experience freedom. He didn’t have that chance … He came to this nation that was supposed to save his life — and that nation destroyed his life.”
And now, abandoned on the subfreezing February streets of the snow capital of America. Because there is really only one point to the ethnic cleansing crusade that began with rabid Trump partisans waving their “Mass Deportation Now!” placards in a Milwaukee arena and ended with a cold, lonely corpse on Perry Street.
Somehow, in this downward spiral that has seen Americans grow accustomed to masked, heavily armed goons in tactical gear snatching day laborers or Uber drivers off once-placid urban streets, the abandonment and death of Shah Alam still hits like a gut punch to the soul of a once-welcoming nation. Yet, it somehow feels even more inhumane when viewed through the tortured prism of the Rohingya people, among the most persecuted ethnic minorities on earth.
Rohingya refugee children carry banners during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres at the Ukhiya camp in Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh, in March 2025.
The roughly 1.4 million, mostly Muslim, Rohingya people in Myanmar, formerly Burma, have been targeted for repression by that nation’s Buddhist majority for decades, culminating in the stripping of their citizenship in 1982 and its military rulers driving hundreds of thousands across the border into Bangladesh during 2017’s brutal campaign.
In March 2022, during the Joe Biden administration, which was a brief window between the anti-refugee xenophobia of the two Trump presidencies, the U.S. government recognized the Rohingya as victims of genocide and, among other moves, expanded their resettlement opportunities in America. It’s estimated that at least 12,000 came to the United States during that short opening, and as many as 2,000 of them — perhaps lured by lower housing costs — have moved to Buffalo in the last couple of years.
It has not been an easy journey. Denied schooling in their native Myanmar and lacking a formal written script for their language, the majority of Rohingya who arrive in the United States are illiterate and unable to speak English.
The short, tragic American experience of Shah Alam reads like an allegory for the Rohingya plight on U.S. soil.
The version of what happened to him on the night of Feb. 15, 2025, as told to me by Fazal and also recounted by his family and lawyers in the media, is that Shah Alam, walking in his new neighborhood with the aid of that curtain rod and likely getting lost, took shelter under a porch perhaps without realizing he was on private property.
The woman who owned the property called the Buffalo police, who viewed the rod as a weapon and — when the non-English speaking Shah Alam failed to follow their commands — tased him and aggressively tried to arrest him. In a fight with the nearly blind immigrant whose awareness of the situation is in question, police said two officers suffered minor injuries. The ensuing criminal charges against Shah Alam — assault, trespassing, and possession of a weapon — were just the start of his Kafkaesque journey through American injustice.
Trump had just become the 47th president, and family members didn’t post bail at first, mainly because of fears the new regime would seek to deport him. Fazal said the already ailing Shah Alam lost considerable weight in his year behind bars, as much of the food didn’t meet his Muslim dietary restrictions.
Supported by the Rohingya diaspora community — Fazal said about 50 people attended one of his hearings — Shah Alam’s legal-aid attorneys eventually struck a misdemeanor plea deal. Then, on Feb. 19, family members arrived at the Erie County detention center expecting to take him home for a warm meal.
Breaking: A blind Burmese refugee named Nurul Shah Alam has been missing since Thurs. after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a Tim Hortons, leaving him to walk home.
After a number of hours, Fazal said, the family called the police and said, “‘He was supposed to come here. He’s not coming.’ And they said, ‘You know, he was taken by the [U.S.] Customs and Border [Protection].’ And they said, ‘What?!’”
A CBP spokesperson told People magazine that Shah Alam was offered a “courtesy ride” from Border Patrol agents, “which he chose to accept to a coffee shop, determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address, rather than be released directly from the Border Patrol station. … He showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance.”
In fact, Shah Alam — completely blind in one eye and with limited sight in the other, according to family members, who didn’t have a cell phone and had never used one — was five miles from his family’s current home. When his relatives and attorneys learned belatedly of the Tim Horton’s drop-off and could not find him, they filed a missing persons report that — in one final injustice — was, for a time, accidentally listed as resolved by an officer who mistakenly thought he was at an immigration detention site.
Instead, his body was found Tuesday night. The preliminary finding after an autopsy by the Erie County medical examiner is that Shah Alam died from medical causes and not from either exposure to the cold or intentional homicide. Nonetheless, his death is under investigation — yes, by the same Buffalo police who initiated this nightmare — and has sparked justifiable outrage from local officials like Buffalo Mayor Sean M. Ryan, who called the CBP actions “unprofessional and inhumane.”
That’s a gross understatement. It’s not just that Shah Alam’s abandonment and death is a new twist on the roughly 40 immigrants who’ve died in federal detention since the start of 2025 from a mix of medical neglect, suicidal despair, and at least one homicide, along with the eight people fatally shot by CBP or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All of it is proof that Trump’s immigration policy is written with the blood of innocents.
We also need to ask ourselves how and why a nation that so blithely uses the Statue of Liberty for everything from car insurance ads to a morally empty 250th birthday party is now repressing some of the most mistreated humans on earth — people who honestly believed America would offer the freedom they were denied in their nation of birth.
It’s a moral abomination to see the Hmong people who risked everything to side with the United States in Southeast Asia now dragged from their homes in Minnesota, or the Venezuelans who fled a strongman dictator only to be branded as criminal gang members, or the Haitians who escaped relentless violence only to now huddle in fear in heartland Ohio.
And now the Rohingya, who were able to survive a genocide and inhumane refugee camps some 8,000 miles away, only to now find themselves in a country that is building concentration camps and forging a 21st-century Trail of Tears.
Fazal — a 30-year-old recent Buffalo State grad whose seven-year stateless flight to freedom passed through Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia (where he was detained for 17 months in an immigration prison), Australia, and Papua New Guinea — told me he feels anger over Shah Alam’s death, but also guilt, because he has gained U.S. citizenship while Shah Alam did not.
“The system and the police should be accountable,” he said. “We need justice to be served.”
When this newest stain on human existence is finally over, there won’t be enough courtrooms to try every masked idiot who shot an unarmed protester, or beat up an immigrant and swore he “ran into a wall,” or slammed a brain-injured woman to the asphalt.
But years in prison would be too good for the soulless monsters who went on a doughnut run and left a good man to die. If there is any justice under God’s universe, they will be consigned for all ofeternity to a snowdrift as large as Lake Erie in an unending and fruitless quest for the warmth and liberty they deprived Nurul Amin Shah Alam.
Students speaking out against abuses by federal immigration agents and the kind of heavy-handed tactics that have led to clashes between protesters and law enforcement across the country were met with excessive force by Quakertown police, who slammed children to the ground and put one in a choke hold.
The irony is not lost. Neither should the outrage.
While some of the facts are in dispute, the picture that emerges from several bystander videos is that it was police — primarily Quakertown Police Chief Scott McElree — who seemingly escalated the confrontation.
Five teenagers arrested during the protest have reportedly been charged with aggravated assault. Those are serious felony charges. Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan must also bring that level of accountability to McElree and his officers.
It all began on Friday, when students planned a walkout to protest the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to Inquirer reporting, initial approval from Quakertown Community High School officials changed to opposition over safety concerns. At least 35 students walked out anyway.
The diverse group headed downtown, holding signs and flags and chanting. Some passing drivers honked and shouted approval, or disapproval, from behind the wheel. A letter to parents by Lisa Hoffman, the acting superintendent of the Quakertown Community School District, said they received reports that students were “engaging in unsafe and disruptive behavior.”
A police statement said students entered traffic, threw snowballs, and damaged property, including a car’s side-view mirror. Available video footage shows students arguing with police about being off the sidewalk to shouts of “this is a peaceful protest,” shortly before McElree — out of uniform and not wearing any clearly visible identification — barrels into the crowd.
McElree engages physically with the students, placing a teenage girl in a choke hold as punches from other protesters rain down. According to students, many believed McElree to be an aggressive counterprotester. A reasonable assumption considering the police chief’s wardrobe and other similar incidents, including one in Texas where a 45-year-old man ended up in a melee with student protesters.
“It’s a grown man. It’s a grown man and a kid! He’s on a child! Why is no one stopping this?” distressed onlookers are heard saying in one of the videos. McElree then throws a teenage girl to the ground, while another Quakertown officer tosses a student onto a planter.
Further compounding the shameful behavior by the authorities, the teens arrested were held in jail until a detention hearing on Tuesday. That’s over 72 hours. This would be unfair for adults; to treat children this way is unconscionable.
The Quakertown community has been justifiably incensed over what happened.
At a borough council meeting on Monday, borough officials said they were “disturbed” by the incident, but declined additional comment. Residents wanted their elected leaders to go much further, demanding McElree’s resignation or termination.
Evan Smith, from nearby Richlandtown, reminded officials that “Jesus told us to suffer the little children, not to make them suffer.” Colin Hancock, a student who attended the protest, described being afraid to go back to his own home due to the actions of the police. Many seemed shocked that something like this could happen in their small suburban town.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania accused McElree of acting as a counterprotester, rather than as law enforcement. In a statement, the group said the chief “abandoned his job and his mission” and said he must be held accountable.
Khan said his office is investigating. Hopefully, the results of the district attorney’s inquiry will give the community a thorough understanding of the incident and whether McElree or any of his officers merit dismissal. At the very least, changes to the Quakertown Borough Police Department must be implemented so this never happens again.
Students exercising their First Amendment rights and engaging in civil disobedience may yet face disciplinary action from their school, but they should not have to deal with brutal treatment by law enforcement, who ought to know better.
When I put pencil to paper and let my imagination run, I’m often surprised by certain discoveries and associations that emerge. While sketching in the aftermath of Renee Good’s and Alex Pretti’s recent killings, I began to conjure images of ISIS rolling out over the Levant in 2013.
Not wanting to commit to a ham-fisted metaphor, I put my sketchbook away, only to find the idea too sticky to relinquish. As I embarked on the labor-intensive process of making the paper cutout you see printed here, the parallels became all too clear: the uniforms, the masks, the military armaments, the extremism, the rigid ideology. This is what ICE is.
This MAGA army, paid for by 2025’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” is the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the nation. It is only partly intended to expel and terrify what the regime perceives as undesirable immigrants. It is becoming apparent that it was also created to impose the movement’s fundamentalist values on American society writ large.
That is why Good and Pretti were perceived as such a threat. Good was a liberal woman in a same-sex marriage who wouldn’t bow to ICE tyranny. Pretti was a legally armed citizen determined to protect his neighbors from agents’ overreach and abuse.
As the flow of immigrants over the nation’s southern border has abated, Republicans have resurrected their panic over Sharia Law. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has been campaigning on his fight against “radical Islam,” while his colleagues at the state level have created a “Sharia-Free America Caucus.” This is pure projection. Similar to Islamic extremists, conservative Republicans strive to impose their retrograde worldview on the rest of us.
It continues: “This includes pastors publicly reinforcing the truth that there are only two sexes — male and female — and that reason and revelation agree that marriage … consists of the exclusive union of one man and one woman and is ordered toward the spouses and the children that can and, if so blessed, should come from that union.”
Although they don’t explicitly say it, I believe Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection under her command, is positioned to be the enforcers of this ideology, using the state’s monopoly of violence against transgressors.
“MAGA, ICE Is” — a paper-cut illustration by the artist Joe Boruchow.
As ICE and CBP expand their operations to other cities and the government builds out its archipelago of concentration camps, I expect we will see more scenes that evoke the violent tactics and aesthetics of fundamentalist extremist groups of the past.
If we are unable to stop this project at the ballot box, and America’s elites continue to roll over to this administration, these antidemocratic forces will continue their race to entrench their power and strip us of the freedoms we take for granted.
MAGA continues to show us what they are: MAGA, ICE is.
If you have an idea for a drawing, editorial cartoon, multipanel comic strip, or other illustration that might serve as a visual op-ed, please email oped@inquirer.com.
Five teenagers arrested during a protest in Quakertown last week face charges of aggravated assault and related crimes after a judge ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for the case against them to proceed, according to sources.
The teenagers had been held since Friday, when they were taken into custody after a scuffle with Quakertown police officers — including the department’s chief, Scott McElree.
Officials have released few details about the arrests, but two people with knowledge of the case who asked not to be identified to discuss an ongoing investigation confirmed the charges. The police department and the district attorney’s office have declined to disclose the teens’ names, ages, or charges they face.
After the more than three-hour hearing in Doylestown, which was closed to the public, prosecutors left the courtroom without answering questions. The teenagers’ parents, speaking through intermediaries, also declined to comment Tuesday.
But Ettore Angelo, a lawyer representing one of the teenagers, said his 15-year-old client had been released to her parents and placed on house arrest. He said she faces an aggravated assault charge — a felony offense that, if sustained in juvenile court, can carry a penalty of up to five years in a detention facility.
The teenagers who were arrested had been taking part in a protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that began at Quakertown Community High School and moved off campus to Front Street. Witnesses have said that a confrontation erupted there, in front of Sunday’s Deli and Restaurant.
Students at Quakertown Community High School took part in a protest of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that began at the school and moved off campus to Front Street.
McElree, the police chief, who was dressed in plain clothes, grabbed a teenage boy and placed a teenage girl in a chokehold, they said, prompting other students to intervene and a larger scuffle to break out.
Angelo said the central allegation against his client is that she struck McElree during the melee, an accusation she denies. He contended that students reacted in confusion and fear when a man rushed into the crowd.
He said McElree “put himself smack in the middle and created a melee” when he charged up to the teenagers while out of uniform and without announcing who he was. “I think he owes the community and these teenagers an apology,” the lawyer said.
He added that, in his view, some of the teenagers had acted instinctively to protect one another.
Speaking by phone Tuesday afternoon, a 17-year-old girl who participated in the protest but was not among those arrested described what she said had been a peaceful demonstration even as counterprotesters drove past in vehicles, honking and shouting.
The teen, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said teenagers were gathered on the sidewalk and speaking with a uniformed officer when a man pushed through the crowd and “barged onto the sidewalk.”
The man — whom she later learned was McElree — grabbed a teenage boy by the back of the neck, she said. “All the kids thought he was a counter protester,” she said. “So everyone started to protect their friends.”
The girl said she saw McElree throw one student to the ground and place another in a chokehold. At least three students were injured, she said — one with a broken nose and another who required stitches to his chin. McElree, too, was injured, she said, and left the scene bleeding from his head.
She recorded portions of the confrontation and shared the videos with The Inquirer.
“It was really scary, because it was a group of kids versus this really angry man,” the teen said, adding that it took what felt like several minutes for uniformed officers to step in. “It was the kids doing what the police should have.”
The girl said she did not realize that the man at the center of the fight was the police chief until she returned home and showed the footage to her father, who recognized McElree.
Manuel Gamiz, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said Monday that the investigation remains ongoing and that no additional information was available.
Police initially said an adult had also been arrested during the confrontation. But the district attorney’s office later said no adults had been charged in the melee.
Outside the courthouse and along the hallway leading to the courtroom of Denise M. Bowman, more than two dozen community members gathered in quiet support Tuesday. Some held handmade signs: “We support Quakertown students” and “Keep families together.”
Among them was Lolly Hopwood, 47, of Doylestown, who held a poster reading, “We stand with you.” She said she and others wanted to counter what she described as harsh online criticism directed at the families.
“There’s a lot of negativity online right now that the parents are seeing,” Ms. Hopwood said. “We wanted to show them the community is really here for them.”
On Monday night, the episode had spilled into borough politics. At a Quakertown council meeting, several residents called for the teenagers’ release and demanded the resignation of McElree, who also serves as the borough manager. After the public session, the council met privately with its attorney. As of Tuesday morning, it was unclear whether any action would be taken against the chief.
Members of the borough council and the borough’s attorney, Peter Nelson, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
A GoFundMe campaign created to help cover the teenagers’ legal expenses had raised more than $41,000 by Tuesday afternoon. The funds will be divided evenly among the five families, said Heidi Roux, director of immigrant justice at the Welcome Project PA, which organized the drive.
