Dec 12
2025
Cops shouldn’t cooperate with ICE, advocates say
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A panel of law students and advocates presented the report Wednesday. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.
A handful of local law enforcement agencies turn migrants they encounter over to federal immigration agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol — a practice some now say should end.
In a report released Wednesday, professors and graduate students with the Buffalo Human Rights Center — part of the University at Buffalo’s law school — detailed the cooperation between local and federal agencies, criticized the practice and called on state lawmakers to ban it.
“Our conclusion across many contexts and many actors is that cooperation between state and local agencies and federal immigration enforcement results in serious violations of individuals’ human rights, affecting their standing, their dignity, their well being,” said Paul Linden-Retek, a University at Buffalo law professor and the center’s co-director.
Linden-Retek said local police detaining migrants on behalf of federal immigration agencies could amount to a violation of the person’s constitutional rights. In Cheektowaga, for example, it’s common for police officers to hold a migrant temporarily before Border Patrol arrives to take custody. Those minutes in between police charging the person for a local offense and federal agents arriving could amount to a 4th Amendment violation, he said.
“Say you have a traffic stop,” Linden-Retek said. “The initial stop might be lawful, right? But the minute that stop prolongs … then you have another seizure. And then that has to be justified.”
In New York, it’s unlawful for a local officer to enforce federal civil law, such as holding a person on suspicion they’re in the country illegally. An officer must have suspicion a federal crime has been committed — such as illegal reentry after a prior deportation — to enforce immigration laws.
Linden-Retek and his law students, along with representatives from the New York Immigration Coalition, Justice for Migrant Families and others called at a Wednesday press conference for lawmakers to pass the New York for All Act. That legislation would codify prior state court rulings and prohibit local police from cooperating with federal law enforcement on immigration matters. It would also restrict information sharing about migrants.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe law would also make moot the formal agreements — called 287g agreements — between local law enforcement and ICE. In Western New York, noted Meghan Maloney de Zaldivar of the New York Immigration Coalition, both the Niagara and Cattaraugus county sheriff’s offices have contracts with ICE to arrest and detain migrants, as well as share information.
The cooperation between local law enforcement is a problem, Linden-Retek and the law students argued, because it stokes fears of detention and deportation and drives migrants underground. Immigrants become less likely to seek legal representation, attend school and church, speak up about workplace violations and call police when someone harms them or they witness a crime, the law students and advocates said Wednesday.
Overly aggressive immigration enforcement, the report states, “emboldens abusive employers while silencing the individuals whose rights are most at risk.”
“The more immigration enforcement you do, the more vulnerable workers will be,” the report, quoting University of Chicago law professor Nicole Hallett, said. “If you want to actually address the labor violations, you have to prioritize that above doing immigration enforcement.”
The report notes a pair of ICE raids this year at Lynn-Ette & Sons Farms, a site of a migrant worker unionization effort, as well alleged labor violations against migrants working at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Buffalo. The report further cites the experience of an Eritrean woman who was not informed of her right to maternal leave so she “hid the fact that she was pregnant from her boss because she did not want to get fired.”
The 93-page report — based on legal research, contemporaneous news coverage and numerous interviews with migrants and their advocates — further details the story of a Cheektowaga woman. A survivor of domestic violence, Maria, the report states, was afraid to call local police on her abuser because she feared she could be deported. As Investigative Post detailed Tuesday, Cheektowaga police are known to question migrants on their legal status and turn them over to Border Patrol agents.
The report goes on to detail how, as Maria’s abuse continued, she eventually opted to call her landlord instead of police. The landlord, however, did call the police.
“When officers came, they violently forced Maria’s door off its hinges and pushed their way into the house. Not long after the police left, ICE came to investigate. Maria knew to ask for a warrant … but with the door shattered she had no way to keep the agents out.”
Maria’s sister-in-law, the report states, was arrested by ICE that day and now faces deportation.
“New York for All is very critical. It protects that due process,” said Flor Saldivar Silvestre, community engagement coordinator with Justice for Migrant Families. “It prevents police … from funnelling into deportation systems and it would hopefully restore that trust that the community should regain in police.”
With regard to education, the report notes an incident earlier this year in which immigration agents stopped a child exiting a school bus and “began to question her with welfare-related questions.” The bus driver, alarmed by the scene, called local police to intervene, which they did. Nevertheless, the girl feared she could have been separated from her family, the report notes.
The release of the report follows a Tuesday investigation by Investigative Post that found police in Cheektowaga, as well as sheriffs deputies in Erie and Niagara counties, are regularly working with federal immigration agencies like Border Patrol and ICE. Police departments in Amherst, Lockport and North Tonawanda are, too. Investigative Post identified 31 people turned over by local law enforcement to federal authorities who were then subject to questioning, detention or deportation. Cheektowaga accounted for 21 of those cases.
The reporting found that while cops can’t enforce federal immigration law, some have made it a practice to question migrants detained for other offenses — like shoplifting or running a stop sign — about their legal status. Speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent can be one factor that leads an officer to question a migrant as to their status.
Then, saying they need to verify the person’s identity, officers call Border Patrol. Border Patrol, in turn — and acting to enforce President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program — takes custody of the person. Representatives of local law enforcement agencies told Investigative Post they don’t take responsibility for what happens to a migrant once federal authorities take custody.
In some cases, U.S. citizens or lawfully-present asylum seekers were subjected to questioning and detention after a run-in with Cheektowaga police.
Through October 15, ICE has arrested more than 1,000 migrants in Western New York this year, 67 percent with no criminal history. That compares to 453 arrests in all of 2024, according to the latest release of ICE arrest figures from the Deportation Data Project. President Donald Trump’s administration has said it aims to arrest 3,000 migrants daily nationwide. Locally, ICE arrests an average of three people per day.
One of the arrestees highlighted in the report was Anderson Contreras-Hernandez, a young man subjected to both the cooperation between police and immigration authorities and the Laken Riley Act. That law, enacted in January, states that migrants accused of certain crimes, including shoplifting, must be held without bond by immigration authorities.
In June, the 20-year-old had been shopping at the Walden Galleria when he was accused of shoplifting. Mall security called Cheektowaga police. An asylum seeker from Venezuela, police were not satisfied when Contreras-Hernandez presented his work authorization ID. They called Border Patrol, which took custody.
A sickle cell flare up landed Contreras-Hernandez in the hospital where he remained, under guard, for weeks. He and his father were eventually deported. His mother and brother later followed them back to Venezuela.
“They said, ‘Being detained and flown all over the country, and being separated from the people I love, and risking whatever happens to me in these jails and detention centers … was worse than whatever I face at home,’” Catharine Grainge, one of his attorneys, said Wednesday.
Had Cheektowaga police not contacted Border Patrol, she said, the family would still be living and working in Buffalo.
“It doesn’t need to be this way. If they come for me today, they will come for you tomorrow. We have an opportunity to say, ‘Not in my neighborhood, not with my tax dollars.’ We have the chance to protect each other.”
Tonight, Investigative Post interviews Mayor-elect Sean Ryan at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at 7 p.m. Be there!
