Wife says Springdale police picked up immigrant awaiting green card, officer said he'd be transported to ICE

Springdale has become a flashpoint for data center and immigration enforcement debates

Springdale police picked up a Honduran immigrant awaiting a green card on July 2, his wife told the Associated Press, and an officer told her he had been arrested for a traffic violation and was being transported to ICE’s field office in Pittsburgh.

Yaquelin Vasques described tracking her husband’s phone to the Springdale Borough building, where she confronted an officer. The officer told her the arrest was for a traffic violation and that her husband was being taken to the ICE facility, she said. Acosta was sitting in his parked truck outside a commercial job site in Harmar when police took him into custody, according to his wife.

The couple had been taking precautions while his green card application was pending, Vasques said, but she had heard warnings about Springdale. “I was like, ‘Oh babe, I heard so many things from the Springdale area,’” she said during a July interview at her home in Beaver County, more than 30 miles away. “A lot of immigrants are saying, ‘Don’t go to Springdale.’”

Springdale, a square-mile borough long dominated by a coal-fired power plant, has over the past 12 months become a local flashpoint for two of the nation’s most contentious issues: data centers and immigration enforcement. The Cheswick Generating Station, a landmark on the Allegheny riverfront, closed in 2022. Now the talk of the town is a proposed data center campus that would occupy the 100-acre site. The developer, Allegheny Data Centers, has promised hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue, but the project has divided residents.

The borough council voted 4-3 in June to grant the developer a 10-year tax break, a decision that has been a schism in the community. Council member John D’Angelo, who voted against the break, said, “We’re going to be the laughingstock of the Allegheny Valley.” The developer defended the project, saying, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Springdale.”

Immigration enforcement has also become a flashpoint. Police Chief Michael Naviglia has said the department serves warrants and assists federal agencies when requested, and the borough has become a destination for ICE enforcement. The Acosta case is one example. Vasques said she had been taking precautions, but the arrest still happened.

The borough’s transformation from a quiet suburb into a civic battleground reflects national tensions over data centers and immigration enforcement, the Associated Press reported.