U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s field office in New York City is looking for 150 parking spaces in Downtown Manhattan, as the agency’s contract for parking spaces at the Hudson River Park on the West Side is set to expire soon.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, publicized the plan on its contracting website on Tuesday, offering a $5 million-$10 million contract expected to begin between April and June of this year and extend over the next five years.
The local ICE field office is seeking the indoor parking spaces for SUVs, mid-sized vans, and mini-buses within a quarter-mile radius of its offices at 201 Varick St. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the plans, or whether the contract request signaled any change in enforcement plans.
After meetings with President Donald Trump and later border czar Tom Homan, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in March that the president had promised not to send additional ICE officers to New York, “unless we ask for it.”
The contract request comes after the Hudson River Park Trust, a publicly owned corporation overseen by the state and city, announced plans to end its long-standing contract to provide parking spaces to DHS, which expires at the end of June.
The decision came amid widespread criticism of ICE enforcement in New York City and beyond, and followed reporting on the parking contract by the local news outlet Hell Gate.
The U.S. government has thus far paid about $480,000 to the Hudson River Park Trust as part of a contract that began July 1, 2021, to “provide secure parking spaces” for DHS and ICE, according to federal contracting data.
A spokesperson for the Trust in 2018 told Sludge, a nonprofit news and research organization investigating money in politics, that its parking contracts with DHS began before 2004, and that the latest contract at the time was for 35 spaces used by ICE at Pier 40.
Spokespeople for the Hudson River Park Trust did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some elected officials and advocates have come out against ICE’s contract request and its larger crackdown on immigration in New York City and across the country.
“I will fight this every step of the way,” Carl Wilson, a candidate for the 3rd Council District, wrote in a social media post. “Our community will not be a staging ground for raids, fear and mass deportation.”
Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of the nonprofit New York Immigration Coalition, questioned whether the contract request signaled a plan for ICE to expand its supply of spaces or replace those lost at the end of its contract with Hudson River Park.
“At the end of the day, what we’re seeing happen across our city and our country is horrifying for anyone to witness,” Awawdeh said. “And for anyone who wants to be complicit in that, they should really reconsider their actions. Is it worth making a couple of bucks while you’re harming potentially your staff, yourself, and your community in the process?”