ICE Is Building a ‘Hard-Sided’ Detention Facility Near Buffalo. What Does That Mean?

Some structures other than brick-and-mortar buildings could become operational quickly, within 60 days, the former officials said. But some designs can be difficult to manage, particularly when it comes to security and climate control at a site so far north. 

“Especially in Buffalo, it’s going to be a challenge in the wintertime,” said a former federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he now works for ICE as a consultant.

Prior to ICE’s public announcement, New York Focus learned that the agency had recently discussed building a “soft-side” tent structure to house up to 100 people at the Buffalo facility. New York Focus reviewed notes from those discussions and spoke with a source familiar with the plans. Wayne County Sheriff Rob Milby said an ICE contact confirmed the agency was considering building the tents. ICE did not respond to questions asking whether it had abandoned that plan.

People detained at the Buffalo facility, which exclusively houses men, have long described overcrowding, poor access to medical care, and the use of solitary confinement as punishment. Rosa Cohen-Cruz, immigration policy director for the Bronx Defenders, argued it was unlikely that any expansion, particularly one set up quickly, would prioritize immigrants’ safety.

“It is very hard to believe that anything that is sort of slapped together quickly will come anywhere close to meeting the needs,” she said.

In its statement, the Department of Homeland Security assured that the new facility “will provide a safe, secure, and humane environment for individuals in ICE custody and will operate in accordance with applicable National Detention Standards.”

The expansion comes as ICE is set to lose access to hundreds of beds it has used at local jails in New York in recent months. As part of the state budget passed in May, New York banned counties from detaining people for ICE. The law goes into effect August 25, and counties with existing detention agreements then have three months to terminate them.

The Department of Homeland Security’s statement said the expansion was needed “due to New York State laws prohibiting counties from contracting with ICE to house illegal aliens.” The Trump administration sued New York last month over the laws, which also prohibit local law enforcement agencies from entering into so-called 287(g) agreements that deputize their officers to perform immigration enforcement.

Cohen-Cruz pushed back against ICE’s claim that New York’s new law prompted the detention expansion plan, pointing out that the agency is trying to expand its capacity in states that do allow immigration detention in county jails.

It had also sought to expand its detention capacity in New York long before the state passed the new restrictions. The agency is building detention cells in a federal building in downtown Rochester, and the federal government has leased a 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Newburgh that documents suggest could be used by ICE, Radio Catskill recently reported. ICE abandoned plans to turn a warehouse in Chester, in the Hudson Valley, into a detention facility after local outcry. Currently, the only other federal facility in New York that houses ICE detainees is Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.

Under the Trump administration, ICE has used tents and other structures to quickly expand immigration detention around the country. Florida rushed to construct “Alligator Alcatraz,” a tent complex in the Everglades, last summer. (The facility recently shut down.) A massive tent camp opened last year in El Paso, Texas, is now the country’s largest immigration detention facility.

The Buffalo Federal Detention Facility is one of only a handful of ICE jails that the agency owns outright, rather than contracting with a private company or local jail. (Privately run detention facilities are illegal in New York.)

That could make it easier to build there, said Claire Trickler-McNulty, who worked for ICE under the Biden, Obama, and first Trump administrations.

“They already own the land, they have more control, and they don’t have to deal with zoning issues or other things that may come up if it’s a private company or a vendor,” Trickler-McNulty said.

Milby, who has criticized Governor Kathy Hochul’s efforts to limit collaboration with ICE, applauded the expansion plan. 

“From what everybody understands, space is at a premium” at the Buffalo detention center, he said. “Now with the new law that she’s enacting, she’s taking away the ability of sheriffs to help the situation.”

Cohen-Cruz sees it differently. “There’s no reason why people cannot be at liberty while they fight their deportation cases,” she said. “If we really are trying to create a safe, just, and humane immigration system, we should not be funneling more resources into expanding detention.”