40 ICE attorneys moving into Woodbury building, owner says, raising deportation fears

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is renting out office space in Woodbury for up to 40 ICE attorneys, according to the building owner, in a move that is alarming advocates who see it as a sign the agency is ramping up its deportation campaign on Long Island.

The federal agency last month started renting offices in a four-story building at 88 Froehlich Farm Blvd., said Craig J. Padover, president of Hauppauge-based Aresco Management, which owns the building.

ICE will not be sending masked, armed agents to the offices or immigrants detained by agents, Padover said.

"There's no ICE agents, there’s nothing of that sort, no field operation of any kind," he said. "It's just a legal office. ... If there was any chance that there were going to be agents coming to this building, I would not have done this."

Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday she opposed the move.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

The ICE expansion on Long Island comes as controversy escalates over President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign, especially after agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month. Democratic lawmakers in Congress are holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security as they demand reforms to ICE amid alleged abuse by agents.

ICE is expanding rapidly, with nearly $80 billion in new funding from Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," passed in July. ICE has increased the number of agents from 10,000 to 22,000 in the past year and is now the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency.

Immigrant advocates said they recently have spotted new SUVs with "ICE" painted on the sides being transported to Long Island. They said the office lease in Woodbury signals what they believe will be an escalation of ICE activities that have already provoked demonstrations, school disruptions, family separations, damaged businesses and widespread fear.

"I'm very alarmed," said Patrick Young, an attorney, Hofstra Law School professor and expert on immigration in the region. "You don't have 40 attorneys out here on Long Island if you're not going to see increased ICE presence in the communities all around Long Island."

Expanding operations

The news magazine Wired reported last week that ICE is moving into or expanding operations at 150 sites around the country, including in Woodbury, as part of an aggressive expansion.

Trump has said his campaign is targeting dangerous and violent criminals, though studies show most of those detained have no criminal records.

Hochul said through a spokeswoman that "at a time when masked ICE agents are running roughshod over the constitutional rights of Americans, our administration opposes any efforts to expand ICE operations in the state."

While New York will work with federal officials to crack down on gangs and violent criminals, the spokeswoman said, "we will not support attacks on New York communities."

Melanie Creps, executive director of the Central American Refugee Center in Hempstead, said Long Island "is being destabilized by fear. Expanding ICE’s presence will likely add fire to this instability."

"School attendance has dropped by as much as 25% in some districts. Businesses are losing critical workers in many regions. Families are afraid to leave the house for basic needs like to buy groceries or attend doctors' visits," she said.

The exact number of ICE arrests on Long Island is not clear, but 2,251 immigrants were detained from January 2025 through Oct. 15, 2025, in Nassau County Correctional Center ICE cells. Long Island is home to about 100,000 immigrants who entered the country without legal papers or overstayed visas, according to advocates.

Padover said he was contacted by the federal General Services Administration about renting office space to ICE in the Woodbury building. GSA manages federal buildings and functions.

In a statement to Newsday, GSA said it "is committed to working with all of our partner agencies, including our patriotic law enforcement partners such as ICE, to meet their workspace needs."

ICE also has a presence in the federal courthouse in Central Islip and at the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, where it houses detained migrants. ICE agents who cover Long Island currently are based mainly out of ICE offices in New York City, Young said.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) said Tuesday he was "disappointed" that ICE had not responded to his requests for information about what is happening at the Woodbury site, which is in his district.

"Transparency and good-faith engagement between federal, state and local officials are essential to building trust and preventing the chaos and uncertainty we have seen elsewhere in the country," Suozzi wrote in a letter to Kristi Noem, secretary of Homeland Security, who oversees ICE.

Newsday's Yancey Roy contributed to this story.