Albany, NY – The inclusion of State Senator Julia Salazar’s Dignity Not Detention Act in the State budget will ban State and local facilities from being used to detain people for ICE and terminate any existing agreements within three months. This includes banning all 287(g) agreements and Intergovernmental Support Agreements with ICE.  

Senator Salazar, prime sponsor of Dignity Not Detention, released the following: “It is shameful that New York actively detains people for ICE, an agency that is ripping families apart and brutalizing people on the streets. There are several local jails in our state that participate in immigration detention, directly supporting the federal administration’s efforts to violently round up our neighbors, separate them from their communities, and ship them off, often with little to no due process. With the inclusion of Dignity Not Detention in the budget, New York’s involvement with immigration detention will come to an end.” 

“While the State budget and Dignity Not Detention thankfully ban formal agreements with ICE, it does not ban informal collusion between State and local law enforcement and ICE. We must also pass New York for All to ban informal collusion, which is necessary to prevent ICE from continuing to terrorize our communities.”   

Coalition: 

Dignity Not Detention’s inclusion in the State budget is due to years-long advocacy and organizing by a broad coalition of New Yorkers and lawmakers, including the Bronx Defenders, NYCLU, The Center for Constitutional Rights, Brooklyn Defenders, Legal Aid Society, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Critical Resistance, SURGE, NYC-DSA, Detention Watch Network, Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, Make the Road NYC, New York Immigration Coalition, UnLocal, and more. 

Why do we need Dignity Not Detention? 

• Currently active ICE contracts with local jails include Orange County Jail, Broome County Jail, Allegany County Jail, Montgomery County Jail, Clinton County Jail, Niagara County Jail, and Nassau County Jail. From February 2025 to March 2026, Nassau County detained more than 3,200 New Yorkers for ICE. 

• ICE’s ability to detain people at local jails expands the agency’s overall capacity and enables it to arrest and deport more New Yorkers.   

• In 2025, NY county jails detained more than 6x as many people for ICE as in 2024 (2,800 people in the first seven months of 2025, compared to 500 people in all of 2024). 

• Detainees at Broome County Jail and OCJ are often not allowed or able to contact their lawyers.  

• The harms of ICE detention existed before Trump and will not disappear at the end of his presidency.  

• Back in 2023, Orange County Jail in New York was found to be one of the worst in the nation for medical neglect and abuse.   

• In 2021, Orange County Jail officials and ICE retaliated against people in detention by putting them in segregated confinement, cutting them off from communicating with the outside world, or shipping them across the country. 

Case study: Orange County Jail (OCJ) is one of the nation’s worst immigration detention centers.  

• In February 2022, detainees took part in a multiday hunger strike in response to conditions of medical neglect, racist harassment, and physical assault. As retaliation, jail guards placed people in segregated confinement and prevented them from communicating with the outside world. In July of 2022, the facility transferred those involved to other facilities across the country.   

• Brooklyn Defenders Services has described the conditions at OCJ as torturous.  

• From NPR: "Examples of mistreatment include a sergeant entering the female unit and greeting the female detainees by yelling, 'Hello a****les and b****es,'" an inspector found at the Orange County Jail in Goshen, New York. "Multiple staff make comments such as, if detainees do not like the treatment, they should not have come to our country. A [correctional officer] working in a male unit confronted a group of detainees stating, 'Who's the f***ing p**** who made the complaint against me?'" 

Statements from Coalition Members 

“We are so grateful to Senator Salazar and Assemblymember Reyes for their leadership in  finally getting New York out of the business of ICE detention,” said Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Immigration Policy Director at The Bronx Defenders. “For decades, we have represented hundreds of people forced to fight their deportation cases from inside county jails, while those same counties profited from their abuse and sometimes death. Banning such contracts halts these injustices, and we commend the Governor and Legislature for standing firm against allowing these harms to continue unchecked.  While we celebrate this win alongside the countless New Yorkers who were detained and lived to fight against their treatment, we will continue to call for the New York For All Act to prevent collusion between local law enforcement and ICE that often leads to detention in the first place.” 

“After years of advocacy by immigrant New Yorkers and their supporters, New York State has finally taken an important step to end its complicity with ICE detention by banning current and future contracts that allow local jails and other facilities to incarcerate immigrants fighting their deportation cases,” said Samah Sisay, Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “This victory belongs to everyone who has long stated that Dignity Not Detention is needed to build a true sanctuary state, especially the countless immigrants held in ICE custody at local jails, like Orange County Jail, who faced abhorrent abuses and retaliation for trying to build power and demand accountability."    

SURJ: “The New York City chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a member of the Dignity Not Detention coalition from its inception, is thrilled to see New York State divest from the business of immigration detention. As a core component of the prison-industrial complex, immigration detention is deeply intertwined with white supremacy, and anti-Blackness in particular. Under the current federal regime, moreover, ICE operates as a tool of state control, targeting communities of color and, increasingly, those who support them, sowing fear and suppressing dissent. Banning state and local immigration detention contracts and restricting the federal government's efforts to expand detention is crucial for the safety of all New Yorkers, as well as for democracy itself. This victory is a testament to the conviction of directly impacted New Yorkers and passionate volunteer organizers: parents, artists, teachers, students, writers, immigrants and their loved ones. Still, the victory is not yet complete. We call on state lawmakers, and especially Governor Hochul, to ensure the safety of everyone in our state by also passing New York for All.”  
 

"Today’s passage of the Dignity Not Detention Act is a momentous victory for New York’s immigrant communities, their loved ones, and everyone who believes our state should not aid and abet ICE's cruel and inhumane immigration detention system," said Drea Herrera, Senior Organizer with the NYCLU. “By banning contracts between ICE and New York’s local jails, we’ve taken a meaningful step toward ending New York’s complicity in Trump’s mass deportation machine. But to truly protect immigrant New Yorkers from ICE’s cruelty, Albany must end all forms of ICE collusion — including all forms of informal collusion that frequently occurs between police and ICE.  Lawmakers must pass the New York For All Act immediately.” 

Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition: “As the Trump Administration carries out its cruel agenda of fast-tracked deportations and mass detentions across the country, New York took a decisive step today and rejected the state’s involvement in the inhumane practice of immigrant detention. We commend Governor Hochul, the New York State Legislature, the leadership of Assemblymember Reyes and Senator Salazar and our partners in the Dignity not Detention Coalition for ending ICE contracts with local jails and ensuring that New York will not stand by idly as our immigrant neighbors are funneled into the ever-expanding detention network. We urge Albany to go further to protect all community members by limiting the informal collusion that funnels immigrant families into the detention and deportation dragnet by passing the New York for All Act, without any further delay.”