DECATUR TOWNSHIP — An ICE detainee who was blamed by officials for encouraging others to refuse meals to protest poor conditions at Moshannon Valley Processing Center has been returned to the facility and placed under a higher level of surveillance, his lawyer says.
In addition, Edin Daniel Chinchilla-Roque has been punished for talking to the press, according to Harrisburg-based immigration lawyer Craig Shagin. Chinchilla-Roque is unable to call certain people, including his girlfriend, because the numbers have been blocked, Shagin said.
Chinchilla-Roque spent seven days in solitary confinement following the protest. He was then transported to Port Isabel Service Processing Center in south Texas and later Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, before eventually being transferred back to Moshannon on June 6.
First reported and called a hunger strike by PennLive, the protest happened spontaneously after a man vomited green bile during mealtime. The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that claims of a hunger strike were untrue.
Blame was still pinned on Chinchilla-Roque, according to reports obtained by Spotlight PA and WITF. A facility inspector for GEO Group, the private prison company that runs Moshannon, wrote that he “was clearly inciting the group in C-Unit to refuse to accept or consume meals provided by the facility, in protest of alleged poor meals, alleged poor medical care, and other complaints.”
Chinchilla-Roque participated in the protest but did not instigate it, he previously told the news outlets.
Shagin said that since being transferred back, Chinchilla-Roque’s security status has been upped from blue, a low-risk designation, to yellow, which is reserved for detainees who have committed nonviolent crimes. It’s a system with liberal categorization, Shagin said.
For Chinchilla-Roque, it means a higher level of surveillance and more control over what he can and cannot do.
GEO Group declined to comment and referred questions to ICE, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Chinchilla-Roque’s health has also deteriorated since he was last at the facility, Shagin said: He is experiencing constant diarrhea and vomiting, and has lost around 50 pounds over the past 10 months while in detention.
He told Shagin that he has developed a bacterial infection that makes it difficult for him to breathe and causes bloody coughs. In a recent medical examination, Chinchilla-Roque was diagnosed with early-onset glaucoma, hypertension, lower back pain, elevated blood pressure, rectal hemorrhage, and injury to the cartilage of his knee, according to Shagin.
Shagin said Chinchilla-Roque continues to have issues accessing his medications for his eyes, anxiety, and blood pressure while at the facility.
“They’re doing everything they can to make him as miserable as possible,” Shagin said.
A judge ruled in 2023 that Chinchilla-Roque is protected under the United Nations Convention Against Torture from being deported back to his home country of Honduras. Still, Chinchilla-Roque has an order of removal, and ICE wants to deport him to a country other than Honduras.
The Trump administration has aggressively expanded third-country deportations. As of June 19, Amnesty International had tracked 30 countries that have concluded removal agreements with the United States. The Migration Policy Institute estimated there were about 15,000 third-country deportations, 13,000 of them to Mexico, between Jan. 20, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2025.
While detained in Moshannon, an immigration judge issued a removal order for Chinchilla-Roque to Mexico. In March, Shagin filed a habeas petition in federal court to both block Chinchilla-Roque from being deported to Mexico and to get him released from detention.
A few months later, Chinchilla-Roque faced the same threat of third-country removal. While temporarily held in the Isabel Service Processing Center, Chinchilla-Roque told Shagin he was asked to board a bus with detainees headed to the Texas-Mexico border.
Knowing he didn’t have papers to enter Mexico and could be jailed upon arrival or taken to Honduras, he refused to go on the bus.
“He knows they will do whatever they can to force him out,” Shagin said.
It was terrifying for Chinchilla-Roque. Now back in Moshannon, he’s reached his lowest point since being detained.
“He's despondent,” Shagin said. “He's depressed. He's fighting. He's not going to give up. He's not going to walk into a country without papers just to be jailed there.”
WITF’s Jordan Wilkie contributed.