Newburgh Board Unanimously Votes to Oppose ICE Detention Warehouse

NEWBURGH, N.Y. – The Town of Newburgh board unanimously voted to oppose a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention warehouse in Newburgh on Monday night.

The local resolution comes after the federal government quietly awarded a $35.5 million contract to lease a Newburgh warehouse to a Texas-based contractor, Leverage Enterprises Inc, in late June. The Trump administration hasn’t confirmed the purpose of the warehouse, but federal records show that the space would require secure sally port access for “detainee buses and vans,” 24-hour government access, and other security measures.

READ: Federal Government Leases Newburgh Warehouse for $35.5 Million, Records Suggest ICE Activity

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Town of Newburgh Town Hall ahead of Monday’s town board meeting with demands to abolish ICE and to oppose a potential ICE facility in Newburgh.

The warehouse is located at 800 Corporate Boulevard off of Route 17K about a mile from Stewart International Airport. Town of Newburgh Supervisor Gil Piaquadio said during the town board meeting that the warehouse’s surrounding area didn’t have adequate water and public safety infrastructure to support a facility that houses individuals.

Some attendees said the resolution is a first step but urged local officials to do more.

“We want them to look at any angle they have, whether that’s permitting, zoning, anything like that,” said Grace Ott, co-chair of the Immigrant Solidarity Working Group for the Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America. “We just want to make sure that they’re actually trying to do something about it, not just saying that they’re opposed and then acting as if that’s enough.”

An ICE spokesperson said in an email to Radio Catskill that they would not confirm office locations as their officers are “facing a coordinated campaign of violence against them including an 8,000% increase in death threats against them and a 1,300% increase in assaults against them.”

“Is it really news that when a federal agency hires more personnel that they need more space? Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill, we have an additional 12,000 ICE officers and agents on the ground across the country. That’s a 120% increase in our workforce,” said the ICE spokesperson.

Protestors held signs opposing ICE’s growing presence in the Hudson Valley at a No ICE rally on July 13 in Newburgh, N.Y. (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)

Desiree Osario, a Newburgh resident and For the Many organizer, shared how husband was detained at Orange County Jail before being deported a year and a half ago. She and her children are still waiting for his return.

“People ask what family separation looks like. It looks like my son when he stopped eating solid food, when he stopped talking,” said Osario. “He wasn’t making a political statement. He wasn’t thinking about immigration policy. He’s just a little boy who does not understand why his dad is not home and why his dad never came home.”

The rally was co-hosted by Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America, For the Many, Newburgh Resists, Rally Middletown, and others.

Radio Catskill reached out to ICE but they did not respond to our request for comment.

Town of Newburgh Supervisor Gil Piaquadio and the town’s councilmembers passed a resolution opposing an ICE detention facility in Newburgh, N.Y. (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)

Local, federal officials demand answers

Local, state, and federal officials have all pushed for answers from the Trump administration about the federal warehouse lease.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Sunday, demanding answers on ICE’s possible expansion plans across the state.

“In Newburgh, the [federal] administration has reportedly signed an agreement to lease a warehouse for use as a detention facility. But no one has talked to the town, or the county, or the state, despite bipartisan public condemnation,” Hochul stated in the letter.

An ICE spokesperson declined to comment on the Newburgh’s federal warehouse lease but confirmed that ICE was constructing a 100-bed detention facility at the Buffalo Federal Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York.

U.S. Representative Pat Ryan also launched a petition on Monday to stop the facility and joined protestors last Tuesday at Algonquin Park to oppose the plans.

Ryan told Radio Catskill that the Trump administration has not been responsive to his request for more information. “We will keep pushing but frankly, they’ve been just a completely unaccountable, a black-box-kind-of an administration.”

The growing protests in Orange County against ICE came after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas on July 7 and Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine days later on July 13 during an ICE operation.

Update: This article was updated on July 17 to include a statement from ICE.

Image: Hundreds gathered outside the Town of Newburgh Town Hall on July 13 to oppose a potential ICE detention facility in Newburgh (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)