By Staff Reporter
BATAVIA, N.Y. — The federal government plans to put up a new detention structure beside the immigration jail in Batavia to hold women arrested in New York and neighboring states. Documents from the Department of Homeland Security show the cost is set at nearly $17 million, and the contract was awarded without competitive bidding. The same records leave out the number of beds, the staffing plan, and even whether the building will be a tent.
The records were released this month by Rep. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, after waiting nearly three months for answers to an oversight letter he sent on July 8. The Chronicle reviewed the full package: a Sept. 29 letter from Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a question-by-question response, and a June 15 contract approval memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
What DHS disclosed
As of July 8, the Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia held 653 detainees, the department wrote. The facility has 650 beds, and Investigative Post and WXXI have reported that it typically runs over capacity. Twenty-eight percent of detainees had criminal records, DHS said.
Mr. Mullin did not treat that figure as a weakness. “Known criminal history is not a prerequisite for immigration enforcement action and never has been,” he wrote. “The American people support the removal of illegal aliens, not just those with known criminal records.” His cover letter said voters in 2024 chose “mass deportations,” and that the department would deliver them “in part due to increased ICE detention capacity.”
DHS said the expansion will be paid for with money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It put the cost of standing up and running the facility for the first year at $8,779,275. ICE plans to hold women there, the department wrote, but “if the needs of the service dictate, males could also be housed there.” No children will be held. As of Sept. 29, construction had not started.
Tent or building?
The documents do not agree on what is being built. The DHS response calls it a “temporary hard-sided facility.” The ICE memo attached to that same response, titled “Batavia Service Processing Center Soft Sided Facility,” describes a contractor “constructing and maintaining a complete self-sustaining soft sided temporary detention facility.”
“While this approach may be more expensive, it is necessary to meet the immediate and urgent bedspace requirements in the Buffalo area of responsibility,” wrote Ralph Ferguson, ICE’s assistant director for operations support, in the memo seeking approval.
The memo puts the total contract value at $16,703,366.80, a two-year figure that includes $5 million for contingencies, according to the memo and WXXI’s reporting. It describes a six-month construction and operation period followed by three six-month option periods, or 24 months of support. Yet the period of performance listed in the same memo runs from June 1, 2026, to July 31, 2027, about 14 months. The memo marks the award as sole source, with no other proposals received. The planned number of beds and the line-item prices are blacked out.
Earlier public descriptions referred to 100 beds. The vendor is listed as Akima Global Services. An Akima affiliate, Akima Infrastructure Protection, already staffs the existing Batavia facility, according to the DHS response.
The medical gap
The most concrete part of the DHS response concerns health care, which detainees have long said is lacking. ICE Health Service Corps wants 12 registered nurses, five licensed vocational nurses, three advanced practice providers, a dentist, two dental assistants, five social workers, a pharmacy technician, a radiation technologist and two recreation coordinators. The response also lists new space for exam rooms, behavioral health consultations, urgent care, and a six-room medical unit that includes two suicide-watch rooms and two airborne-infection isolation rooms.
DHS said overall staffing for the new structure is “still being discussed.”
Why now
DHS tied the expansion to a New York law that bars county jails from contracting with ICE to house detainees. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the law in May, and it took effect in August, WXXI reported. Before that, ICE held women from Western New York in the Niagara and Allegany county jails, Investigative Post reported. Fifteen county sheriffs are suing the state over the law, according to WXXI.
The reaction
Mr. Kennedy focused on the criminal-record figure. “This administration told the American people it was going after the worst of the worst. Now they’ve admitted in writing that it isn’t true,” he said in a statement. “It took them more than two months to answer, and they still can’t keep their story straight about what they’re building.”
Local advocates oppose the project. Harper Bishop, a spokesperson for the Evict ICE campaign in Buffalo, told Investigative Post that thousands of residents “don’t want Batavia expanded.” Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for Justice for Migrant Families, said detention aimed at women tends to separate more families. “It is our obligation, if we want to live up to being ‘good neighbors,’ to oppose ICE’s expansion in Batavia,” he told the outlet.
ICE did not answer WXXI’s questions seeking clarification, the station reported. A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told WXXI his office was not ready to comment.
What remains unknown
Several basic questions are still unanswered. How many beds will the structure hold, and what is the daily cost per detainee? Why does the memo describe 24 months of support but list a 14-month performance period? Will women held in Batavia have access to lawyers and family in the region, or will some still be moved out of state, as WXXI reported ICE has done in the past? And if men can be housed there “if the needs of the service dictate,” is this a women’s facility at all?
ICE’s Buffalo field office and Akima can answer those questions. The Chronicle plans to ask both.
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