New York’s Biggest ICE Detention Center Bans Book Deliveries

The agency allows each detention facility to develop its own package policies, including for book deliveries. Koontz said the policy change affected only the Buffalo facility, also referred to as Batavia.

Since late July, volunteers with Justice for Migrant Families have sent about 20 books to the facility, which rejected them all, said the advocacy group’s book coordinator, Abigail Cooke. Sometimes, books have been returned with the note “Moved, Left no Address” while the intended recipient is still detained there, she said.

The rejected books include an illustrated Spanish-English dictionary, the Spanish translation of “A Clash of Kings” by George R.R. Martin, and “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman and Nan Silver.

Koontz told New York Focus that the facility made the change after reviewing its mail-handling procedures. “During that review, officials identified security risks associated with the direct-mail program,” he added. When asked to explain further, he wrote, “we do not discuss operational security topics.”

When Cooke called Batavia in mid-August to ask about the change, the employee who answered the phone told her it was too difficult for the facility to detect contraband that might come in with the books, according to notes she took that day. Cooke pointed out that volunteers order directly from booksellers like Barnes & Noble; the employee said it would be too hard for them to track everyone working at those distribution centers.

On Wednesday, Justice for Migrant Families, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and four other organizations sent a letter to ICE’s assistant field office director, Andrew Oliveri, demanding the facility reinstate book deliveries and arguing that the prohibition violates detainees’ First Amendment rights.

“Fundamentally, a total ban on the receipt of books in BFDF is an impermissible, exaggerated response to any purported prison concerns,” they wrote.

Megan Porter, staff attorney at the NYCLU, said the Batavia policy is far more expansive than policies they’ve seen at other jails and prisons, which have prohibited specific titles.“I candidly was pretty surprised and pretty struck, because I’ve been doing this for a number of years, to see that the detention facility was banning all books,” they said. “That is not something I run into, even in this line of work.”

Even before the change, Cooke said, mailing books to people at Batavia had never been simple.

First, a person in detention requested a book through the organization’s phone line, a social worker, or a lawyer. Then, Cooke asked volunteers to order a title and have it shipped to the facility. The rules were strict: Only new paperbacks were allowed, and they had to be mailed directly from a bookseller such as Barnes & Noble. Once a book had been ordered, Cooke sent the person who’d ordered it a postcard telling them it was on the way.

“If they don’t let the facility staff know that they’re expecting the book, the package is just rejected out of hand,” Cooke said.

It was “a bit of a convoluted process,” she said, but it generally worked, and volunteers were able to send 10 to 25 books a month. From June 1 to July 10, Cooke’s volunteers sent 26 books and confirmed that 14 were received.

Then, in late July, Justice for Migrant Families staff started hearing from detainees at Batavia that facility employees had announced book deliveries were no longer allowed.

Advocates said the move has made immigration detention at Batavia more tedious as its population grows and ICE keeps people locked up for longer periods, thanks to the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate bond for people detained during immigration proceedings.

“You can’t get a GED or a college degree,” said Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for Justice for Migrant Families. “There are no activities like debate or job training. So people are incredibly bored.”