First responders rushed to a private jail in rural Pennsylvania last month, where guards discovered one of the hundreds of immigrants detained there hanging in a shower room.
Efforts to revive 32-year-old Chaofeng Ge failed. The Chinese national who had been living in New York City was pronounced dead from suicide.
"Obviously, Mr. Ge's family is very concerned," said New York state senator John Liu, who has been in touch with Ge's brother. "They were surprised that this would have happened."
Scripps News has learned Ge's suicide was not the first sign of trouble at the jail in Philipsburg, also known as the Moshannon Valley Processing Center. The jail is owned by the GEO Group and under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help house migrants arrested as part of President Donald Trump's deportation push. With more than 1,300 ICE detainees, Moshannon Valley is one of the largest in the nation.
Court documents reviewed by the Scripps News investigative team, and interviews with detainees, reveal urgent complaints about conditions at the jail in the weeks before, during and after Ge's death.
A previous Scripps News investigation exposed safety issues at a detention center in Leavenworth, Kansas, and other privately run jails going back years.
Conducting oversight of private jails has been difficult even for members of Congress. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., said she was turned away from Moshannon Valley, where Ge died.
"We still have questions, and we want to make sure that we get answers," Lee said in a video posted to social media.
A Scripps News crew drove to the complex but was stopped at the gate.
"I've been directed to tell you to leave," said a guard with a GEO Group logo on his shirt. "This is private property."
Dozens of detainees at the jail have been speaking out in the form of habeas corpus petitions filed in federal court. They are pleading for a judge to end their seemingly indefinite detention.
The petitions include reports of inadequate health care at the jail and other detainees placed on suicide watch in the months before Ge killed himself.
The filing for one immigrant imprisoned 15 months without a bond hearing says: "His unstable mental health has deteriorated ... While in immigration custody, he has also been sexually assaulted twice and placed on suicide watch several times."
Another petition said authorities at the jail "discontinued the 15-minute wellness checks" for a detainee who "experienced several severe panic attacks, including one that led to his hospitalization after a suicide attempt."
There is also the case of a Nigerian immigrant who had been living in New Jersey with her two children. Her attorney says she is a survivor of domestic abuse and female genital mutilation.
The detainee's petition claims the jail does not provide regular or adequate gynecological care, and that when she arrived there, "officers stripped her naked on camera," causing a severe panic attack.
She was placed on suicide watch, the court filing states.
Scripps News agreed not to reveal her name to protect her from retaliation for speaking out. In a series of phone calls from jail with Scripps News, she said her year and a half of detention at the jail has led to thoughts of harming herself.
"To commit suicide, to kill myself, because of what is going on with the pain and all," she said. "I've never been locked up like this in my life. I'm just a single mother that came to work to find a daily bread for my two kids. That is who I am."
She was detained by ICE last year after getting arrested following an altercation with acquaintances. A judge ruled she can't be deported back to Nigeria because of the likelihood of persecution.
Her petition says she needs medication to manage blood pressure, chest pain, anxiety and depression, but that "medications have not been consistently provided to her while ICE has detained her."
"The medication they give me, I think it's not working," she said. "They will tell you there is nothing they can do."
A document filed by the Justice Department in the case disputes her claims and says they are not relevant to her petition for release.
Scripps News spoke to several other detainees, including an immigrant from Jamaica who had been in the U.S. for almost 30 years before being held at Moshannon Valley Processing Center for nine months.
"We are just going out of our minds," she said in a telephone interview. "They don't give enough food. The vents are not being cleaned enough, so it's like, it's making me sick right now. That's why my voice is so raspy, I'm feeling sick at this moment."
Scripps News asked both the GEO Group and ICE to respond to the claims from detainees but did not receive responses.
The jail in Pennsylvania has been flagged for poor medical care before.
A 2022 Homeland Security report found four areas of concern: medical staffing levels, mental health care, emergency preparedness and detainee communication.
Sarah Paoletti, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, worked on a 2024 civil rights complaint that said "access to medical care is woefully inadequate for all people ICE detains at Moshannon" and also documented two other suicide attempts.
Ge's suicide was an inevitable tragedy, Paoletti said.
"Medical care continues to be an issue," Paoletti said. "This is a problem across the board with immigration detention. The treatment for mental health is completely inadequate, if existent at all."
