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The Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia is undergoing an expansion. The facility will add 100 beds, the Department of Homeland Security says.
The move comes in response to recent New York State legislation that prohibits ICE from detaining individuals in county jails statewide.
“The facility will provide a safe, secure and humane environment for individuals in ICE custody and will operate in accordance with applicable National Detention Standards,” a DHS statement reads.
“As with all ICE detention facilities, detainees will have access to comprehensive medical care, mental health services, legal access, religious accommodations, recreation and other required services,” the statement adds. “The facility will be subject to the same oversight, inspection, and operational requirements that govern ICE detention facilities nationwide.”
The Batavia facility is New York’s largest and only Immigration and Customs Enforcement-run immigrant detention center, with 650 beds. The facility has long experienced overcrowding, with over 100 detainees beyond capacity in late 2025.
In a letter addressed to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Gov. Kathy Hochul asked for more details about the agency’s plans for expansion in the state. In Rochester, short-term detention holding cells are being constructed at the Kenneth B. Keating Federal Building. DHS has also leased a warehouse in Newburgh, which reports suggest could be used for a detention facility.
“My longstanding policy has always been that we will cooperate with law enforcement when crimes have been committed and there is a warrant for arrest or a court order … but this unbridled aggression against law-abiding New Yorkers must stop,” the letter reads.
New York has recently pushed back against federal immigration enforcement through statewide legislation that limits collaboration with local law enforcement agencies, prevents the use of county jails for detention, and allows New York citizens to sue federal, state, and local government officials for violating their constitutional rights
“So I ask: is your Department building or expanding immigration detention facilities in New York? If so, where, to what capacity, and under what authority?” Hochul wrote. “Is this being done at your direction despite President Trump’s commitment that ICE enforcement operations in New York would not be expanded unless requested by the Governor?”
Narm Nathan is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s inaugural cohort.
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This is not the answer. The only answer for this so-called problem is clear, and that is the abolishment of ICE. It is operating outside the rule of law under a bigoted regime that has already pardoned real January 6th terrorists. Pardons have been given to International and domestic criminal drug dealers, fraudsters, and people who have been found guilty of over a billion dollars in Medicaid fraud. They were the rich, white, and Trump campaign contributors, not immigrants illegally getting Medicaid. Over 70% grabbed off the streets, workplaces, schools and more have no violent criminal records and the majority have never been in trouble with the law. Legal status has arbitrarily been removed even from immigrants in courthouses reporting as required to become legal citizens. Real wages and good jobs have not been increased, and it is ICE bringing the crime, fear, and racism. It is well documented that immigrants contribute billions more to the economy and paid taxes than they cost. Since Covid the number of billionaires has more than doubled, increasing their wealth by trillions, and they point at poor people, always black and non-white immigrant poor, as the problem.
Historically, by far the number one terrorist groups murdering people have been slave owners and the KKK. Now it is their offspring in the same but now decentralized groups, with new names, Proud Boys, Oath keepers, Three Percenters and more masked and carrying Confederate flags and the Swastika. We have plenty of jail space for them, some are also in ICE and in our police forces. From Eric Garner to Ice I have seen the videos, and I believe my lying eyes.