Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, in Ithaca. <\/p>\n
Immigration detention is exploding all over the United States. Right now, the media is focused on new immigration detention centers opening in states like Florida<\/a>, Indiana<\/a>, Texas<\/a>, and Nebraska<\/a>. But here in Upstate New York, immigration detention is also rapidly growing and worsening. With a team of law students and attorney colleagues, I visited the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility (BFDF) in July 2025 and spoke directly to many detained persons.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many people, I am afraid that while sleeping on the top bunk I could roll off and fall on someone,\u201d a detained immigrant in BFDF told us. He and others described mattresses on the floor between bunks in BFDF dorms. This is unsurprising given that record numbers of individuals are in detention \u2014 over 59,000<\/a> \u2014 and there are even more<\/a> that the government isn\u2019t reporting. <\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s ramped-up deportation machine is only possible because it ignores both immigration and civil rights law and immigrants\u2019 humanity. The current mandate of 3,000 immigrant arrests per day<\/a> essentially requires ICE agents to arrest anyone they can find, including those with lawful status, pending cases, and long-time residency. These haphazard arrests are often conducted by masked officers<\/a> who are using racial profiling<\/a> to sweep up any potential immigrants. One Latino man we visited at BFDF was apprehended by ICE while he was pumping gas \u2014 there was no reason officers should have approached him. ICE is indiscriminately arresting anyone and everyone \u2014 even U.S. citizens<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many of those detained in BFDF have temporary lawful status and were diligently attending their court hearings. Some had lawful work authorization but were simply plucked off the street after work or, in one case, at a Buffalo Walmart. They were astonished to be detained after showing their valid work cards to ICE. \u201cI am working 70 hours a week for my family, I have no convictions, and I came by the rules. Why am I here?\u201d one Cuban man with humanitarian parole asked. Indeed, like him, over 70% of detained immigrants nationwide have no criminal convictions<\/a>. <\/p>\n A 20-year-old man in BFDF recounted going four days sleeping on the floor and without access to a shower. He had already filed for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a type of green card for immigrant youth. Like those with pending asylum cases who attend their immigration court hearings from outside detention, pursuing status \u201cthe right way,\u201d normally a SIJS applicant is not detained.<\/p>\n Some people we met in BFDF were subjected to workplace exploitation in the United States that qualifies them for a T-visa<\/a> for victims of human trafficking, or they qualify for a U-visa<\/a>, for victims of certain crimes. However, they can\u2019t effectively apply for such visas without a lawyer, and immigration judges cannot grant those visas \u2014 only U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can. <\/p>\n One U-visa-eligible man in his mid-30s had lived in the United States since he was 10 years old. Although he had been violently assaulted and lost use of one of his arms, he had not yet applied. Now he sits in immigration detention, eligible for a visa that he can\u2019t realistically pursue from inside and many states away from his community of the last 25 years. <\/p>\n Other detained people in BFDF had attempted to leave the United States for Canada because they fear U.S. enforcement. But Canada turns them back because of the \u201csafe third country\u201d agreement<\/a>, which generally requires foreign nationals to seek refuge in whichever country they arrive first.<\/p>\n This is all quickly getting much, much worse. The Big Beautiful Bill <\/a>that Congress passed in early July allocates more than $70 billion in supplemental funding over four years to increase border security operations. Forty-five billion dollars are allocated toward opening additional detention facilities<\/a>, quadrupling the current funding even as the U.S. currently holds record-breaking numbers of detained immigrants<\/a>. ICE has told some individuals that they may be deported to a third country, like El Salvador, where the infamous CECOT<\/a> prison is located.<\/p>\n Already, conditions are more horrendous than ever<\/a>. Hastily built centers and spiking arrest rates, combined with the dismantling<\/a> of oversight, mean people are crammed into overcrowded facilities. Yet conditions in detention nationwide have long been abhorrent, with lack of sufficient food, poor medical care<\/a>, no language access<\/a>, and even torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n Everyone, regardless of political affiliation or even views on immigration, should be deeply concerned by this administration\u2019s handling of immigrants. Current policies threaten the very bedrock of democracy, risking the civil rights<\/a> of all in the name of exclusion and expulsion. Racialized enforcement<\/a> and rampant disregard for human rights should not be a hallmark of the orderly, fair immigration system we should strive for \u2014 and it is tearing Upstate New York communities apart. <\/p>\n In recent days, polling shows that 72% of Americans <\/a>say immigrants come to the United States to better their lives. The nativist, anti-immigrant tide of the current administration is increasingly unpopular<\/a>. Public opinion and outcry must get louder, demanding an end to this dangerous, inhumane course of enforcement.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, in Ithaca. Immigration detention is exploding…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-174804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115090442343867270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}