How ICE and a data center turned a small Pittsburgh suburb into a civic battleground

Todd Lovic, center, confronts Immigration Enforcement protesters in Springdale, Pa., on Feb. 14, 2026. (Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source via AP) 2026-08-04T18:46:13Z Yaquelin Vasques grew nervous when her husband, Jose Acosta, told her he was taking a construction job near Springdale. The couple had been taking precautions while Acosta, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, awaited the outcome of his green card application. “I was like, ‘Oh babe, I heard so many things from the Springdale area,’” said Vasques during a July interview at her home in Beaver County more than 30 miles away. Springdale Borough was long a sleepy square-mile suburb dominated by a power plant, but over the last 12 months has become a local flashpoint for two of the nation’s most contentious issues: data centers and Immigration Enforcement. Acosta was picked up by Springdale police around 9 a.m. on July 2 while seated in his parked truck outside a commercial job site in Harmar, according to Vasques. She tracked his phone to the Springdale Borough building, where she confronted an officer who said her husband had been arrested for a traffic violation and was being transported to ICE’s field office in Pittsburgh. Acosta lived in the country since 2018 without incident other than a 2023 traffic stop, until now. “If luck is on our side, he could be home in two, maybe three, years,” said the mother of three. Yaquelin Vasques is raising her three children alone since her husband was detained in Harmar by ICE and Springdale Borough police on July 2. “I’m not the only one. There’s so many people going through it, too,” she said July 14 at her Beaver County home. ICE spokesman Jason Koontz wrote in an email statement that ICE and Springdale police “were conducting field operations in the Springdale Borough area” when they apprehended Acosta in Harmar. (