ICE held more than 1,400 people in East Meadow jail in last 5 months under agreement with Nassau
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have held more than 1,400 people at an East Meadow jail so far this year under a partnership with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, data obtained by Newsday shows.
The previously unreported figures show that since President Donald Trump took office in January, ICE has transported hundreds of people each month to East Meadow. Blakeman announced Nassau’s partnership with ICE in February, moving quickly to advance Trump’s mass deportation agenda by enabling Nassau’s police and sheriff’s departments to arrest and jail immigrants with no legal status. As part of that agreement, Blakeman set aside 50 jail cells for ICE to use.
Suffolk County currently has no such agreement with ICE.
"The residents of Nassau County overwhelmingly approve of removing criminals from our neighborhoods and communities," Blakeman told Newsday. "I am pleased with the relationship with ICE."
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- ICE has held over 1,400 immigrants at an East Meadow jail, with 50 cells designated for ICE use, as part of a broader effort to advance mass deportation policies.
- The partnership is part of an agreement that allows Nassau police to transfer detainees to ICE custody.
- Despite assurances the program targets individuals with criminal charges unrelated to immigration status, concerns persist about the impact on non-criminal immigrants and the potential for constitutional rights violations, as outlined in a recent lawsuit from the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"We do not get information as to where the detainees are picked up, but if they are committing crimes in the metropolitan area they are a threat to Nassau County," Blakeman wrote in a statement to Newsday last week.
As Stephen Miller, White House adviser and architect behind the mass deportation plan, increased the nation’s ICE arrest quota in May from 1,000 arrests per day to 3,000, Nassau’s jail has filled with detainees. In February, ICE jailed 86 people in Nassau. Last month, that number jumped to 437 people. It's unclear how many people have been detained so far this month.
Under the county’s partnership with ICE, detainees can be jailed for no longer than 72 hours before ICE transfers them to a long-term detention site to await a hearing or deport them. The federal government is reimbursing Nassau County for using its 50 jail cells, as Blakeman has said ICE will have a "permanent presence" in East Meadow. It is unclear where ICE took the 1,400 detainees after their jail time in Nassau.
As ICE transports people from outside of Nassau to East Meadow, police are also transferring people they arrest in Nassau into ICE custody. Since January, Nassau police have transferred at least 15 people charged with crimes ranging from theft to child endangerment into ICE custody, county officials told Newsday.
"There are several violent criminals in jail who will face deportation once they have served their punishment here in the United States," Blakeman wrote in a statement to Newsday. Alleged violators include a man charged with killing his 2-month-old daughter.
Nassau authorities have tried for years to transfer such cases to ICE under former President Joe Biden, but the federal agency refused to accept such cases, according to officials. Nassau police made zero transfers to ICE under Biden.
"No one wants a murderer roaming our streets, but ... the vast majority of people are not threats; they’re working-class immigrants being fast-tracked out of the country with no defense," said Ahmad Perez, founder and executive director of Islip Forward, a nonprofit that tracks ICE across Long Island through a phone alert system.
Nassau’s partnership with ICE also gives 10 Nassau police detectives the power to arrest and jail immigrants without documentation just as an ICE officer would. While those detectives have been trained by ICE, they have yet to deploy.
Blakeman has said Nassau’s ICE partnership is "not about raids," but targeting people accused of a crime. While entering the United States is considered a crime, living here afterward is a civil matter. While ICE officers can arrest and jail people for civil matters, state law bars local police from doing so.
"Let me assure the public that there will be no raids on schools, churches or communities ... There will be no stopping of individuals, unless they are suspected of committing a crime separate and apart from their immigration status," Blakeman said in a social media video earlier this year.
While announcing the program in February, Blakeman said the 50 East Meadow jail cells would be used to detain immigrants without documentation who were facing unrelated criminal charges. Asked on Wednesday whether he could confirm the people jailed in East Meadow this year faced criminal charges separate from their immigration status, Blakeman did not respond. Nassau County police did not respond. ICE also did not respond.
After Suffolk County officials jailed hundreds of immigrants at ICE’s request between 2016 and 2018, a federal judge ruled the county could be on the hook for $60 million for violating their constitutional rights.
Last month, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued Nassau County, Nassau police and its commissioner, Patrick Ryder, alleging the county’s partnership with ICE violates state law. Blakeman has called the lawsuit "frivolous."
"Nassau County should not be collaborating with ICE at all," Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and longtime local immigrant advocate, told Newsday.
"It creates distrust between the police and the immigrant community ... Now people think twice and three times before calling the police for anything, or talking with a police officer."
