Proposed ICE Processing Warehouse in Orange County Raises Local Concerns

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A proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Chester, NY, is drawing sharp reactions from local officials and residents, as details emerge about a national plan to speed up immigrant detention and deportation.

The Chester site would be one of 16 smaller processing facilities proposed across the country, according to internal federal documents first reported by The Washington Post. The 401,000-square-foot warehouse is part of a larger plan to house 80,000 immigrants in warehouses across the country. Investigative reporter Sarah Trafton of the Times Union says the goal is to streamline the early stages of immigration enforcement.

“The warehouse in Chester — it’s proposed as one of 16 processing facilities throughout the country,” Trafton said. “And the idea is that rather than the existing system, that this would speed up the process of detaining and deporting immigrants.”

Formerly the Pep Boys Warehouse, the facility would be Orange County’s second U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.

Under the plan, immigrants would first be taken to these short-term processing sites before being transferred elsewhere.

“So once they go through those initial processing centers, then they would be sent to one of seven larger warehouses that are being proposed,” she said. “And that’s where they’d be detained before being deported.”

Trafton emphasized that the Chester facility would not function as a long-term detention center.“The proposal specifically focuses on short-term, quote-unquote, processing,” she said. “These facilities wouldn’t be like the long-term detainment facilities. It would just be sort of to process the immigrants and then essentially funnel them to another facility where they’d be held until their eventual deportation.”

Local officials say they were not consulted
One of the biggest sources of concern locally is how the proposal surfaced.

“The folks that we talked to really, I think, were very caught off guard by the news,” Trafton said. “They said that no — specifically the town supervisor said that no one from the federal government had contacted him about the plans.”

Instead, she said, local leaders learned about the proposal through media reporting. “Really the only reason why anyone knows about them is because of the Washington Post article and the internal documents that those referenced,” she said.

Lawmakers speak out
Several elected officials have also voiced opposition, including U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan, who represents the district that includes Chester.

“He was very vocal about being opposed to this facility and just the general premise behind it,” Trafton said.

Ryan’s statement highlighted language attributed to officials involved in the plan.

“In his statement, he referenced a quote from one of the officials involved, and they’re basically saying that this plan will be like Amazon Prime except with people,” she said. “So the whole idea is to make it more efficient.”

Chester’s existing ICE presence
The proposal is especially notable because Chester sits in Orange County, home to the Orange County Jail, which has housed ICE detainees for years. The jail has faced lawsuits and reports alleging systemic medical neglect and other issues involving detained immigrants.

Trafton says geography may be a key factor in the federal government’s interest in the area.

“I think they’re kind of looking to establish these facilities in places where you can easily then transport immigrants back and forth,” she said. “This is the only new location being proposed in New York, but it’s Southern New York, closer to access to the city.”

She added that officials have drawn a distinction between the proposed warehouse and the existing jail.

“This new facility is being proposed as a processing facility, which would be different than the long-term detention facility,” Trafton said.

Can the project be stopped?
It remains unclear how much authority local governments would have to block or delay the facility. “I think that kind of remains to be seen at this point, just because this is such a new and developing thing,” Trafton said. “I know the town supervisor is very against it and wants to do anything he can to prevent it, but as far as what means he has to do that against the federal government, I think remains to be seen.”

The proposal is emerging amid heightened scrutiny of ICE following a fatal enforcement operation in Minneapolis earlier this week, in which a woman was shot and killed by an ICE agent.

“I think that that may definitely play into people who are wary of having this facility in their backyard, or just more ICE presence than there already is,” Trafton said.

Image: The former Pep Boys warehouse in Chester.