ICE Detentions in New York County Jails Have Exploded

As ICE ramped up immigration arrests in workplaces, courthouses, and on the streets, and instituted a policy mandating detention during deportation proceedings, the agency sought space to detain the growing numbers of people it was arresting.

County jails are some of the agency’s only options in New York. Private detention centers, which ICE relies on elsewhere in the country, are illegal in the state, and the state’s only ICE detention facility, near Buffalo, has often been near or even over capacity this year.

ICE will pay participating counties millions of dollars in total this year to detain people the agency is seeking to deport.

Some county officials view the arrangements as part of their broader support for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. “It makes for a safer county to allow ICE to use our jail cells,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a vocal Trump ally, said at a July press conference.

Over half of the ICE detainees held in New York jails between January and July — and 62 percent in Nassau County — had no criminal charges or conviction, the federal data shows.

The jails’ immigration detention agreements have sparked backlash from some residents and local legislators who don’t want their counties involved in Trump’s deportation dragnet.

“We are putting people who have allegedly committed civil offenses in jail. That’s what’s wrong with this equation,” said Niagara County legislator Carla Speranza.

Fewer jails participated during Trump’s first term, but more people — more than 200 a day on average — were in them.

During President Joe Biden’s term, only Clinton County, at the Canadian border, and Orange County, in the Hudson Valley, consistently held ICE detainees. In 2024, Orange County booked 324 people, and Clinton County 138. Long Island’s Nassau County booked just 29.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, the network — and the number of people moving through it — has grown substantially. Nassau saw the most dramatic uptick, taking in 1,427 people on behalf of ICE between January and the end of July, more than any other county. Orange County jailed 666 people, and the five other facilities booked 685 people combined.

How long ICE detainees stay in the jails varies widely. In Orange County, the average length of stay is 33 days. In others, including Nassau, it’s as short as two days.

Many detainees were arrested nearby and eventually taken to different detention facilities. In rare cases, they were released on bond or deported, ICE data shows. People arrested by ICE in New York often eventually end up in detention facilities in southern states like Texas or Louisiana, according to interviews with five immigration attorneys.

The jails are holding people under county agreements with federal agencies. Some have detention contracts with ICE. Others are taking ICE detainees under longstanding agreements with the US Marshals Service, the federal law enforcement agency, that have provisions allowing ICE to use the jail space. Both types of agreements typically require the jails to guarantee that they will keep a certain number of beds available for ICE or US Marshals detainees. 

Montgomery County Sheriff Jeffery Smith, a Republican, said his county’s contract with the Marshals Service dates back to the 1990s, when the Marshals paid to help build a new jail. But ICE generally hasn’t used it to hold people there until this year, according to data published by the Vera Institute of Justice. Smith said the agency typically calls and asks if the jail has a bed open, and says they’ll be bringing someone in if so. The jail staff don’t know why each person was detained, he added.

“We feel we’re doing the right thing in giving all of these incarcerated individuals a safe place to be until they reach their final destination,” Smith said.

The detention contracts are separate from so-called 287(g) agreements, which deputize local officers to assist with federal immigration enforcement. (Broome, Nassau, and Niagara counties also entered 287(g) agreements this year.)

In exchange for detention capacity, the jails receive payments that help them cover staff salaries and other expenses. ICE pays Allegany County $95 per person per day, according to invoices obtained by New York Focus, while Nassau gets $195, county officials told local media.

Orange County has historically brought in millions of dollars annually by holding ICE detainees, helping cover total jail costs of about $78 million this fiscal year, according to the county budget. Across the rest of the state, the money generally makes up a relatively small portion of jail budgets. Invoices obtained through a records request showed that Allegany County billed ICE about $115,000 from February through July, while it cost about $12 million to run the jail last year, according to the county treasurer. The funding share was also small in other counties New York Focus examined.

County and jail officials still tend to welcome the revenue. In this year’s Broome County budget, the second item on the sheriff’s list of objectives for the corrections division was using available beds “to generate revenue by housing prisoners for the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other New York counties.”

“Sheriffs live within a budget, and it’s up to them to fit their expenses into that budget,” said Thomas Mitchell, counsel to the New York Sheriffs’ Association. “Sheriffs might view the contracts with ICE as a way to earn some revenue for the county and maintain jobs for officers.”

In Clinton County, the revenue the jail collects from holding people for ICE and the US Marshals has allowed the county to avoid raising taxes to cover the sheriff’s budget, claimed Robert Hall, a Democrat in the county legislature.

An ongoing crisis in New York’s prisons has made federal money especially enticing for county jails. A three-week wildcat strike launched by state prison guards in February ended after the prison system fired about 2,000 officers for defying a return-to-work order, leaving the state’s prisons understaffed. As a result, county jails have had to hold people sentenced to state prison time, which sheriffs say is costly.

Niagara County Sheriff Mike Filicetti told county legislators that accepting ICE detainees has helped cover overtime costs for corrections officers, which he said went up when the county had to hold more state prisoners, according to Speranza, the Niagara county legislator. Filicetti did not respond to requests for comment.

Some residents oppose the use of detention agreements to generate revenue for the county. Holding people in jail “who have committed no crime, that’s not acceptable,” said Jim Shultz, an activist with Stand Up Lockport in Niagara County.

“They’re just doing it for the money,” he said. “Well, what else is the county jail going to get used for just for money?”

Broome County advocates who make visits to the jail are skeptical. 

The jail doesn’t have translators on site to help officers and nurses communicate with detainees who don’t speak English, said Joshua Vaughn, who until earlier this month was incarcerated there. 

“The immigrants aren’t getting, like, a Spanish rulebook, so they don’t even know the rules,” he said. 

Akshar did not respond to requests for comment.

County jails can also make detention harder to navigate for families and attorneys. Matthew Geiling, an immigration attorney, said it’s tougher to locate people when they’re held in county jails than at ICE’s facility in Batavia. Another attorney, who asked not to be named because her employer doesn’t authorize her to speak to the press, said that, in her experience, jails sometimes fail to set up calls with lawyers or video hearings, leading clients to miss court dates.

Smith, the Montgomery County sheriff, was the only jail official who spoke to New York Focus about holding ICE detainees. None of the other county jails mentioned in this story responded to requests for comment.