Public defenders call on New York to cancel ICE detention contracts
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By Jacob Kaye
Several public defender groups came out in support of a bill introduced in the state legislature that would put an end to paid contracts between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and New York State detention centers last week.
The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a joint effort between The Legal Aid Society, Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, called on the Assembly and Senate to pass the Dignity Not Detention Act on Thursday, May 20. If passed, the bill would prohibit state entities from entering into paid contracts with ICE and would require any existing contracts to be terminated.
“We, as attorneys, paralegals, social workers, and other staff working directly with those harmed by this system, are adamantly opposed to ICE incarceration,” the letter from NYIFUP reads. “ICE incarceration separates families, and in doing so, deprives people of contact with their loved ones, and of support from a wage-earner or caretaker. It also traumatizes, isolates, and dehumanizes people who experience it, and their families and communities more broadly.”
The bill aims to prevent state entities, including detention centers, local law enforcement and municipalities, from entering into paid agreements with ICE to detain people as they wait for the outcome of their immigration court cases. The bill is currently in committee and co-sponsored by Assembly members Zohran Mamdani, Phara Souffrant Forrest, Jo Anne Simon and Marcela Mitaynes.
The public defenders say that ICE detention does little more than “pressure people who are exercising their rights to remain in the United States to cease fighting and accept deportation.”
Among the issues raised by the public defenders are the limits on bed space in local detention centers that partner with ICE and inadequate care. In its letter, the group singled out Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, New York, which has an existing contract with the federal law enforcement agency.
“Orange and other county jails that contract with ICE fail to provide rehabilitative or educational programming for people as well as adequate health care, thereby causing long-term physical, emotional, and psychological damage to immigrant New Yorkers,” the letter reads.
In March, Edward Alonso Castillo, a Jamaica resident, was released from ICE detention after spending two months in Orange County Correctional Facility, according to a report from NY1. He was released after it was found that his detention didn’t meet the standards for deportation set by President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security.
While ICE currently has no contracts with detention facilities in the city, it does have contracts with seven facilities in the state, according to the agency’s website.
ICE formerly housed detainees in the Queens Correctional Facility, though the contract ended in 2005. The Queens Correctional Facility, which was formerly the city’s only private jail, had its contract with the Department of Justice terminated in March.
The public defenders group says its support of the Dignity Not Detention Act is part of a multi-pronged campaign to end ICE detention throughout the country.
“The entire deportation process, from the moment of arrest to the inhumane treatment of detained individuals, from start to finish, must end,” the group wrote. “New York should refuse to provide space for ICE to continue to detain people and should immediately pass the Dignity Not Detention Act. This measure marks a critical step towards ending the incarceration of people based on where they were born.”
