Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has told Westfair’s Westchester County Business Journal that as of Feb. 19 it had not purchased the warehouse at 29 Elizabeth Drive in Chester, New York, in Orange County that has been the subject of enormous controversy recently. ICE had developed a plan to buy the former PepBoys warehouse from an entity related to businessman and investor Carl Ichan and convert it into a detention facility for people arrested by its agents.
ICE previously had released a statement saying that it had purchased the warehouse. On Feb. 13, Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said that no deed had been filed with the county indicating that a sale had taken place.
ICE as of Feb. 19 told the Business Journal, “ICE has NOT purchased a facility in Chester, New York. That statement was sent without proper approval, and this mistake has since been rectified.”
When word got out about ICE’s plan for the Chester warehouse, a groundswell of public and official opposition arose. ICE has been creating a national network of detention centers capable of holding an estimated 100,000 people. Some of the most vocal critics of ICE have called the planned detention centers “concentration camps.”
ICE already has a long-standing arrangement with Orange County to use part of the county jail to hold people arrested as part of its immigration enforcement activities. ICE did not immediately respond to a question from the Business Journal on whether a new detention center would result in cancellation of its arrangement to use the county jail.
The statement from ICE sent to the Business Journal also restated what ICE describes as its mission.
“DHS is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe. It should not come as news that ICE will be making arrests in states across the U.S. and is actively working to expand detention space,” ICE said. “ICE is targeting criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, criminals, gang members and more. 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.”
The warehouse encompasses 401,000 square feet with parking for 194 cars. ICE had tried to prevent the public and local officials from finding out about its interest in converting the warehouse into a detention facility. However, when it filed required government paperwork disclosing that its project would impact a flood area on the property, word of its plan for the warehouse got out.
Neuhaus said that he had not heard anything from federal officials from the time ICE first became interested in the warehouse. Neuhaus said that the sewage system in Chester already is at capacity and could not accommodate what ICE wants to do.
“You’re going to have a facility where you’re going to have thousands of protesters coming here at the same time they’re operating here in an industrial park,” Neuhaus said. “There are businesses all around the industrial park. There’s a commuter parking lot that is very actively used by people commuting to New York City on bus.”
Neuhaus noted that large protests have taken place outside of ICE detention facilities elsewhere in the U.S. He said that he talked with Gov. Kathy Hochul on Feb. 13 about the situation and asked her to have the New York State Police available to help local police with crowd control should ICE actually convert the warehouse into a detention facility. He also asked for the National Guard to be on standby.
“I have not had one elected official in New York state, in the Hudson Valley, in Orange County, call me and say they’re for this,” Neuhaus said. He is a Republican and pointed out that his Republican-controlled County Legislature voted unanimously against the project.
Congressman Pat Ryan whose district includes Chester has been among those rallying the Hudson Valley community to stop ICE’s Chester plan. Ryan has now voiced an added concern about ICE leasing office space at 843 Union Ave., in New Windsor, close to New York’s New York Stewart International Airport.
Ryan demanded answers to what ICE is doing in New Windsor from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Administrator Todd Lyons.
“Let me be clear: the Hudson Valley does not support ICE expansion in our community,” Ryan told them. “More than 20,000 people have signed my petition opposing the proposed Chester detention facility. Bipartisan local leaders have condemned your plans. Our community has spoken with one voice: ICE’s terror campaign has no place here. Now ICE is quietly expanding its footprint in Orange County without consulting the people who live here. This is not how agencies operate in a democracy. The Hudson Valley will not stand for it.”
