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Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center

The death, the first in the Northeast in ICE custody this year, came at the largest immigration jail in the region.

A young man locked up in a notorious U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detention center in Pennsylvania took his life on Tuesday by hanging himself, according to a release from the government and communications between first responders reviewed by The Intercept. His is the first known death in ICE detention facilities in the Northeast this fiscal year. 

The facility where the suicide occurred is the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, a privately run immigration jail in an isolated, rural area about 300 miles west of New York City. Since President Donald Trump began his second term, the detention center has become a major warehouse for immigrants apprehended by ICE in and around New York and Philadelphia.

The dead man was 32-year-old Chaofeng Ge, originally from China. He was living in New York City last year when he was arrested in Pennsylvania for trying to use credit card numbers that did not belong to him to buy gift cards at a CVS Pharmacy. According to an ICE statement released late Wednesday after The Intercept’s inquiry, he pleaded guilty and was handed over to ICE by local authorities.

Ge had been detained at the Moshannon detention facility, which is run by the private prison firm GEO Group, for five days before taking his own life. (GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira referred questions to ICE.)

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