ICE buys a warehouse in New York state for detention center and sparks backlash

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed the purchase of a commercial warehouse in Orange County, in the state of New York, with the aim of using it as a detention center for immigrants.

In statements to local media, a spokesperson for the organization indicated that the facility will be part of its infrastructure network for detention operations under federal supervision. This is the former Pep Boys warehouse, located in the Hudson Valley, 96 kilometers from New York City, which the company used as a distribution center for auto parts and maintenance until its closure in 2024. The property, with an estimated capacity for about 1,500 people, is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plan, under whose authority ICE operates, to acquire more than 20 similar facilities in several states, including New York, to expand its detention center network, according to Bloomberg. In a meeting held on January 30th, the Chester town board in Orange unanimously voted on a resolution to oppose the detention center, highlighted The Oracle, the student newspaper of the State University of New York (SUNY).

“Federal officials confirm that a former warehouse in Chester, New York, was acquired to (build) an ICE detention center. Federal authorities claim it will focus on ‘undocumented immigrants with criminal records,’ including murderers, rapists, and pedophiles,” News12 Westchester channel indicated on X.

The owner of Pep Boys, Carl C. Icahn, was a special advisor to Donald Trump during his first presidency in 2017. On February 10th, a bipartisan group of local lawmakers sent a letter to the DHS to express their opposition to the project and their concern for the safety of immigrants and workers who may end up at the center. “While I support the deportation of undocumented people who commit serious crimes, these facilities would bring chaos to our community,” then-state Senator Democrat James Skoufis, one of the signatories, pointed out on X. For his part, Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan stated after learning of the purchase that “there is not a single local elected official, Democrat or Republican, who wants this or who has been consulted about it.” “We will not allow them to bring to our community the chaos and the massacre that we have seen in Minneapolis,” he added. Meanwhile, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) indicated that ICE’s action “underscores the urgent need for New York to be a bulwark against the Trump Administration’s mass deportation agenda.” “We congratulate the elected officials of Chester, Orange County, and the Hudson Valley who have fought against this project and implore them to continue doing so,” said Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO of NYIC. He also called on state lawmakers in Albany to pass the ‘New York for All’ initiative, a bill that seeks to prohibit state and local agencies from collaborating with federal immigration authorities, a measure already in effect in New York City.