By Isabelle Taft | New York Focus<\/p>\n
This story originally appeared in New York Focus<\/a>, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their newsletter here.<\/p>\n For one Western New York man, an ongoing 10-month stint in federal immigration detention began with a suburban ritual: browsing at a mall department store.<\/p>\n On a Saturday evening in February, JMA, as he\u2019s identified in court filings, was looking at belts at a Macy\u2019s in Cheektowaga, outside of Buffalo. A security guard accused him of trying to steal one of the belts; JMA replied that he was shopping and hoping to purchase it, according to a court petition<\/a> his lawyers filed. The guard called the police, who took him to the station and charged him with petty larceny, a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n A Cheektowaga police officer told JMA, a Cuban citizen, that his supervisor said he had to \u201ccall Border Patrol for noncitizens,\u201d according to the petition. JMA has a pending application for permanent residency under a special program for Cubans, but a Border Patrol agent arrested him anyway. JMA\u2019s shoplifting charge was later dismissed, but he has been held in a federal immigration detention center in nearby Batavia since.<\/p>\n JMA is one of at least 15 people taken into federal custody for immigration proceedings this year after Cheektowaga police called Border Patrol, according to documents obtained by New York Focus through public records requests. Five of the immigration arrests started with a call to Cheektowaga police by security guards at the Macy\u2019s, according to incident reports. In several of the 15 cases, those arrested were not charged with crimes.<\/p>\n Some localities across New York have made headlines for entering into formal partnerships with federal immigration authorities, such as 287(g) agreements that empower local officers to enforce immigration laws, or contracts with local jails<\/a> to hold immigration detainees. In Long Island\u2019s Nassau County, for instance, police are authorized to conduct immigration arrests and the jail has held thousands of people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement this year.<\/p>\n Cheektowaga, a town of 90,000 about 10 miles from the Canadian border, has no such agreement. But immigration politics there have run hot since New York City bused hundreds of asylum seekers to local hotels in 2023, fueling a backlash that helped Republicans flip the town council and unseat a longtime Democratic state lawmaker.<\/p>\n Even without a legal partnership, Cheektowaga police call Border Patrol when they encounter people they suspect of being in the country illegally, or simply when they don\u2019t trust their identification documents. In several cases that New York Focus identified, police officers initially contacted Border Patrol \u2014 a branch of US Customs and Border Protection, which has a presence at the airport in Cheektowaga \u2014 to verify someone\u2019s identity and residency status. Some of their interactions with federal agents appear to push the bounds of what state law permits.<\/p>\n JMA\u2019s attorneys argue that Cheektowaga police violated state law by detaining him while waiting for Border Patrol to arrive. A state appellate court ruled in 2018 that local police can\u2019t detain people for civil immigration offenses \u2014 like overstaying a visa \u2014 without a warrant. That includes situations where police hold someone longer than needed to process their criminal charges so immigration agents can arrive to pick them up, Attorney General Letitia James wrote in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n The incident report documenting JMA\u2019s arrest was sealed, but Cheektowaga Police Captain Jeffrey Schmidt reviewed it at the request of New York Focus.<\/p>\n \u201cIt does appear from reading through the police report that he was released on an appearance ticket and continued to be held until Border Patrol came and retrieved him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf indeed we have stepped outside what the current guidance is by the state, including New York state case law that prohibits this type of activity, it will have to be addressed internally with the department, for sure,\u201d Schmidt added.<\/p>\n Asked about JMA\u2019s arrest and two other instances in which Cheektowaga police called Border Patrol, a spokesperson for the attorney general\u2019s office said it \u201cis aware and reviewing these incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for the Buffalo-based advocacy organization Justice for Migrant Families, met JMA inside the immigration detention center in nearby Batavia about nine months ago and was struck by the story of how his detention began: \u201cA mall cop saw a brown person walking through a Macy\u2019s and assumed that he was shoplifting.\u201d<\/p>\n Then the police got involved.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Cheektowaga police have absolutely no obligation whatsoever, legally speaking, to contact immigration enforcement,\u201d Krupp said. \u201cYet they detained this person for a thing that was fairly obviously bullshit, and they held him until immigration enforcement could come over and pick him up.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cheektowaga Police Department\u2019s \u201cImmigration Violations\u201d policy<\/a>, which Schmidt provided to New York Focus, states that officers \u201cmay detain\u201d someone when they have \u201ca reasonable suspicion\u201d the person entered the United States in violation of a federal criminal law.<\/p>\n That could be when someone admits they came to the US illegally or offers immigration documentation that officers feel is dubious. \u201cA lack of English proficiency may be considered\u201d but should not be \u201cthe sole factor in establishing reasonable suspicion,\u201d the policy says. The policy is copyrighted by Lexipol, a company that writes policies<\/a> for thousands of law enforcement agencies around the country.<\/p>\n In early June, a Cheektowaga officer pulled over a vehicle with expired registration and an obstructed plate. The driver handed over his New York license, and all five of his passengers provided identification as well, according to an incident report<\/a>. The officer noted they \u201cspoke little to no English\u201d and told him they were from Venezuela. He contacted Border Patrol, who arrested the driver and one of the passengers.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce they identified that they were not American citizens, that looks like that\u2019s why our officers then reached out to Border Patrol,\u201d Schmidt said.<\/p>\n In another case, police asked Border Patrol<\/a> to verify a man\u2019s identity and residency status while he was being held for shoplifting charges, after he initially gave police a false identity. The agency advised \u201cthat offender was indeed a U.S. citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n Schmidt said that Cheektowaga officers will only detain someone facing immigration proceedings if they have a criminal immigration charge, such as illegal entry, or if they are also being charged with a state crime. But the police don\u2019t have access to each person\u2019s immigration record.<\/p>\n \u201cWe won\u2019t really know if it\u2019s a civil or criminal violation until after we\u2019ve spoken with Border Patrol,\u201d he said. \u201cSo what happens is, when we identify that someone is not a resident of this country, then we contact Border Patrol.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result of the practice, low-level criminal allegations can yield major immigration consequences for Cheektowaga residents. In early October, police arrested a Venezuelan woman for stealing $37.46<\/a> worth of groceries from a Tops supermarket. Officers released her into Border Patrol custody. As of late November, she was detained at an ICE facility in Louisiana.<\/p>\n Officers do not seek out undocumented immigrants to conduct immigration enforcement, Schmidt said.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody in our department is authorized to target anyone based off of the color of their skin, based off the sound of their speech, at all,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t do that. So I just want to make sure you get that out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Ify Chikezie, a staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said she was skeptical of the idea that Cheektowaga police need to contact Border Patrol to verify someone\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n \u201cThat seems like a rationale that could be easily abused by local police departments,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The five cases that originated at Macy\u2019s, located inside the Walden Galleria mall, involved accusations of stealing merchandise. In June, a security guard called the police on 20-year-old Anderson Contreras-Hernandez and accused him of stealing two pairs of Lacoste underwear valued at $90. After he showed police his work permit, according to the incident report<\/a>, they called Border Patrol \u201cto confirm his identification.\u201d A Cheektowaga judge later dismissed the charges on the condition that he stay out of trouble for six months, but ICE didn\u2019t release Contreras-Hernandez until he agreed to return to Venezuela, in a case the Investigative Post<\/a> covered extensively.<\/p>\n Later that month, Cheektowaga police turned a man and a 16-year-old boy over to Border Patrol after two Macy\u2019s security guards accused them of stealing about $300 worth of furs, according to incident reports<\/a>. The officers called Border Patrol after the suspects told them they were from Colombia; Border Patrol said they were actually from Venezuela.<\/p>\n One of the security guards who made the initial call to police told New York Focus in a brief phone interview that he didn\u2019t recall that interaction. He said Macy\u2019s security doesn\u2019t contact Border Patrol, and he didn\u2019t know that Cheektowaga police do.<\/p>\n A Macy\u2019s spokesperson told New York Focus that after reporting incidents to the police, \u201cwe are not involved in subsequent law enforcement or immigration decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n New York lawmakers will reconsider legislation next year that would prohibit some of the interactions between Cheektowaga police and Border Patrol that have landed people in immigration detention. The New York for All Act<\/a>, first introduced in 2020, would bar police officers from asking about citizenship or immigration status and from communicating with immigration authorities about when someone will be released from custody or have a court appearance.<\/p>\n State Senator Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat who introduced the bill this year, said he believes the increase in immigration arrests this year and reports of local law enforcement collaborating with ICE will add to the measure\u2019s momentum, which is co-sponsored by the majority of Democratic state lawmakers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve certainly seen an uptick in collusion and coordination that to us really undermines public safety, because if you really value public safety, you don\u2019t want to have anyone in your community have a reason to not trust the police,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n