Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed the purchase of a commercial warehouse in Orange County, New York, with the purpose of using it as an immigration detention center.
Speaking to local media, an agency spokesman said the facility will be part of its network of infrastructure for federally supervised detention operations.
ICE buys warehouse in New York
JUST IN: Federal officials say the additional capacity is aimed at targeting what the agency describes as “criminal illegal aliens,” including individuals convicted of homicide, rape, gang-related offenses and drug trafficking.
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It is the former Pep Boys warehouse, located in the Hudson Valley, 96 kilometers from New York City, which the company used as an automotive parts and maintenance distribution center until its closure in 2024.
The property, with an estimated capacity for about 1,500 people, is part of a plan by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), under whose authority ICE operates, to acquire more than 20 similar facilities in several states, including New York, to expand its network of detention centers, Bloomberg reports.
At a meeting held on January 30, the Chester Town Board in Orange unanimously voted a resolution to oppose the detention center, noted 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 say it will focus on ‘undocumented immigrants with criminal records,’ including murderers, rapists and pedophiles,” News12 Westchester Channel X said.
Pep Boys owner Carl C. Icahn was a special advisor to Donald Trump during his first presidency in 2017.
On February 10, a bipartisan group of local legislators sent a letter to 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 individuals who commit serious crimes, these facilities would bring chaos to our community,” Democratic State Senator James Skoufis, one of the signatories, said at X at the time.
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 has been consulted about it.”
“We will not allow them to bring the chaos and carnage we have seen in Minneapolis to our community,” he noted.
Meanwhile, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) stated that ICE’s action “underscores the urgent need for New York to be a bulwark against the Trump Administration’s mass deportation agenda.”
“We commend the elected officials of Chester, Orange County and the Hudson Valley who have fought this project and implore them to continue to do so,” said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of NYIC.
He also called on state legislators 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 place in New York City.
Archived as: Warehouse ICE New York
With information from EFE
