Jun 13
2025
Feds adding migrant detention centers in Buffalo area
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U.S. immigration agencies have expanded their footprint in Western New York, detaining arrested migrants in five locations beyond the federal detention center in Batavia.
One reason for the detentions: The ICE facility in Batavia has been periodically near or over capacity in recent months and cannot house women or children, according to advocates for detainees.
In the Town of Tonawanda, 23 immigrants have been detained for the past 10 days at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station located at 600 Colvin Woods Parkway. A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson confirmed those detentions Wednesday. The station is in an office park visible from the Youngmann Memorial Highway, also known as the I-290, near the Colvin Boulevard exit.
In Lockport, the Niagara County Jail has held ICE detainees for the past month. Two women have been held there since Sunday. That’s according to a county database and Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti.
The county jail in Allegany is also holding ICE detainees, presently three, ICE data shows.
And in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, individuals and families continue to be held for days and weeks at a time at the Peace and Rainbow bridge offices according to attorneys and advocates interviewed by Investigative Post.
Little is known about who is being detained. The Customs spokesperson said those detained at the Town of Tonawanda station are there on charges for “immigration violations,” specifically misdemeanor criminal charges. Nineteen of the detainees are being held on charges they entered the United States without presenting themselves to Customs, he said, and the other four on charges they reentered the country after a deportation.
Ten of the men are from Ecuador, nine from Guatemala, two from Honduras and one each from El Salvador and Venezuela. The Customs spokesperson, however, declined to release a list of the peoples’ names or ages, saying the agency only does so on a case-by-case basis if “the arrestees are felons.”
On Facebook, the U.S. Border Patrol Buffalo Sector page posted photos of some of the men arrested and detained at the Town of Tonawanda station, but blurred out their faces and did not release information on who was arrested.
A Facebook post from U.S. Customs about some of the recent arrests.
In the Niagara County Jail, the names of two women held on “immigration” charges are listed in the sheriff’s online database, but additional information was not immediately available.
The increased number of locations where immigration detentions are occurring appears to be a result of the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants and the White House’s new quota of 3,000 immigration arrests per day.
In the past, Customs may have detained people at their stations for hours, possibly a day, before transferring them to the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, or a similar facility, or letting them go. But now, with more arrests occurring, detentions at the bridges and other CBP stations are lasting days and weeks.
Ron Rienas, CEO of Buffalo & Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, said he understood the longer detentions at the Peace Bridge to be due to “space constraints at other locations.”
Under Customs policy, detentions by border patrol agents should last no longer than 72 hours. The Customs spokesperson said the agency may hold people longer than that “based on long-term federal detention facility availability.”
Use of other detention locations, however, poses risks for the immigrants being held. For one, Customs stations are not equipped for longer-term detentions and may lack showers and proper kitchen equipment.
Rienas, for example, described the kitchen facilities at the Peace Bridge as “like a staff lunchroom” with a microwave, coffee maker, stove and refrigerator. Showers exist for staff, but it’s not clear if those are made available to detainees. Rienas directed such questions to Customs.
“We are not a detention facility,” Rienas said. “We have facilities for short-term detentions, not long-term detentions.”
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One family that was held for several weeks at the Rainbow Bridge said they were fed microwaved meals and could only use camping bags to take showers. Full showers and meals were not available to them.
Asked to comment on the facilities available at the Town of Tonawanda station, the Customs spokesperson described them only as “temporary holding facilities” but said those detained are “afforded three meals per day and showering.”
“Temporary holding facilities are not equipped with a kitchen for safety concerns,” he said. “This is why meals are provided.”
One immigrant advocate who spoke to Investigative Post said the detainees were being fed microwaved meals, like frozen burritos.
Filicetti, the Niagara County sheriff whose jail signed an agreement with ICE in early May, said ICE detainees there are held at the same standards as other inmates.
One reason he said he agreed to house those detainees? The federal government pays $148 per person, per day.
“I have no issue at all housing ICE detainees,” he said. “It’s revenue that offsets my expenses in the budget.”
If detainees are eventually transferred to Batavia, the conditions don’t improve, however. Treatment there has been compared to that at maximum security prisons.
In interviews, former detainees described the food as substandard. They and their advocates said beatings by guards are not uncommon. Substandard medical care is a norm. Long periods of solitary confinement is a frequent punishment.
The new detention sites also pose challenges for legal representation, both for the detainees and the lawyers seeking to represent them. In some cases, even locating a detainee is difficult.
Detainees, attorney Jillian Nowak said, may not be fully aware of their right to an attorney.
“They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know their rights,” said Nowak, the managing attorney for Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York. “They have to pretty much advocate for themselves to get any sort of meaningful process.”
What’s more, she said, lawyers sometimes struggle to locate their clients. The Customs stations, for example, don’t appear in ICE’s online database of where detainees are being held. Most often, advocates and lawyers said, they’re locating people based on word of mouth from friends and family members.
“I have serious concerns about access to counsel there,” Nowak said, noting that advocates and family members may not know how to “access the facility or the people detained.”
Another barrier to legal representation: Detainees are likely to be moved shortly after an advocate or attorney locates them. Nowak said she’s had clients transferred from the Buffalo area to ICE facilities in Arizona, Texas and Louisiana.
Filicetti said transfers were common at his jail, too. “It’s a small number for a small number of days and then they go elsewhere.”
