A new report finds local jails in New York and nationwide are aiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement with mass immigration arrests.
The Prison Policy Initiative report finds more than 57,000 people are detained in ICE facilities, but more than 19,000 are held by U.S. Marshals, many in local jails. Another 5,200 aren’t counted in daily ICE numbers, but are in local jails on ICE “holds.”
Wanda Bertram, a communications specialist for the Prison Policy Initiative, said criminalizing immigration puts the Marshals in the same league as ICE.
“More people are being charged with crimes like illegal re-entry,” said Bertram. “That makes the U.S. Marshals more involved than they were before in what are normally civil matters.”
This comes as ICE is showing up at New York courthouses and health clinics to arrest people for immigration offenses. While the Trump administration says these arrests capture the “worst of the worst,” reports show most people arrested don’t have a criminal record. ICE spokesperson James Covington said these cases wouldn’t have been criminalized previously.
However, communities can push back on this use of local jails. Sheriffs have the power to cancel their contracts with ICE and U.S. Marshals. Bertram noted that during the first Trump administration, local governments enacted sanctuary policies prohibiting ICE and Marshals from using local jails. However, she said, these left some loopholes open.
“One of the things it leaves open,” she said, “is that people who are picked up by the local police are still fingerprinted, their information is sent to the federal government, ICE gets that information, and runs it against records that it has of undocumented people.”
States such as Florida have made this impossible to do. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature passed laws requiring local jurisdictions to enter agreements with ICE, or their elected officials could face removal. These laws were halted by federal courts, but people are still being arrested and deported under these laws.
Edwin is a reporter and producer in North Tonawanda, New York. He’s previously reported for the Niagara Gazette and the Ithaca Times. Edwin got an early start in radio interning for WBFO-88.7FM, NPR’s Buffalo affiliate. In 2018, he graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a B.A. in Journalism, and in 2022, graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in Communications.