Jaime Martinez plans to walk from ICE’s field office in Pittsburgh’s South Side to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County — an eight-day journey — to draw attention to the recent detention of immigrants in the region.
The odyssey begins Easter Sunday morning.
Martinez, founder of Pittsburgh-based immigrant advocacy group Frontline Dignity, said he’ll be joined by others throughout the hike, including immigrant rights advocates, faith leaders and community members from around Pennsylvania. Anyone is welcome to join along the way, he said.
The group is calling the event “Frontline on Foot: The Way to Moshannon.”
“Think of it more as a pilgrimage,” Martinez said.
But it’s not a unique journey, he said.
It’s already been made hundreds of times “in the shadows” by the families of those detained, according to Martinez.
The specific path marchers will take has not yet been released.
Inspired by his own “transformative” experiences hiking Spain’s Camino de Santiago pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James, Martinez said he hopes to talk to locals along the way.
“When things slow down and you can talk with folks, you start to understand each other,” said, Martinez, 23, of Pittsburgh.
He said the long walk also is inspired by the famed marches of the Civil Rights movement in the American South.
Many of those marches were met with violence, but Martinez said he’s doesn’t have serious safety concerns for his walk.
Still, he said a car will drive alongside the marchers for the duration of the hike.
“I have full faith in God that whatever happens on this pilgrimage is meant to happen,” Martinez said.
Along the way, he said, marchers will stay in local homes, hotels and could even camp.
Though much of the resistance to recent immigration activity has been in urban areas, Martinez feels the sentiment has carried further afield.
“It seems like, even in these more rural parts (of Pennsylvania), people are really fired up,” he said.
A journey of around 130 miles, the march will see participants navigate several counties and Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains.
It will commence at 7:15 a.m. Sunday with a press conference at ICE’s facility at 3000 Sidney St. featuring several speakers, including Paulette Cordova, the sister of a Peru-born Springdale resident detained by ICE in February.
The long march will start at 8 a.m.
Once marchers arrive at Moshannon, Martinez said they will hold a vigil for those detained.
The march will also launch a two-week fundraiser for Frontline Dignity to expand its “rapid response, accompaniment, community education and volunteer organizing” operations.
Moshannon Valley Processing Center has operated as an ICE detention facility since 2021.
It’s the largest ICE facility in the Northeast.
It has been averaging 1,650 detainees, with a 50-day average stay, Warden Leonard Oddo previously told TribLive. The facility has never housed more than 1,800 detainees at one time. Its capacity is 1,876.
