ICE detention center proposed for Holtsville draws outraged protesters

At the site of a proposed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Holtsville, about 100 people protested on Sunday afternoon, decrying the plan and the agency's raids on Long Island and throughout the country.

"ICE out!" the crowd of faith leaders and others yelled outside a building housing Internal Revenue Service office space that could be transformed into an ICE detention and processing facility.

"We have organized here today to insist that Brookhaven Town not be a place of detention for immigrants [and] that we stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors here on Long Island," said the Rev. Kate Jones Calone, chair of the Long Island Immigrant Justice Alliance, which sponsored the protest.

Construction documents submitted to the Town of Brookhaven showed that the facility could include holding cells and detainee interview rooms with handcuff bars, Newsday previously reported.

The proposed site would be under the same roof as an existing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office, which handles legal immigration requests. Federal immigration agents have detained people there who were making regular check-ins, eventually transferring them to cells at the federal court in Central Islip.

On Sunday, the crowd expressed outrage in various forms.

Some carried signs with messages such as "Fight ignorance not immigrants" and "No ICE detention on Long Island."

Speakers sounded off about ICE raids in the region, read poetry and sang songs.

Later, the protesters piled into dozens of vehicles to make their voices heard at Brookhaven Town Hall, they said.

For their part, Brookhaven Town officials have rejected the plans, noting that holding cells are not permitted for office space under town code.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The town can’t permanently halt the project because the applicant can seek a zoning change or use variance for the privately owned two-story Barretts Avenue property, which the federal government leases, Newsday has reported.

The possibility that the project won't be stopped has created even more unease, the protesters said.

"We don’t know where they’re going with it," said South Setauket resident Deborah Little of the United Community Action Network. “Do they really plan to turn it into something bigger, take over both floors? These are all things that we're just watching right now."

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico said in a statement Sunday evening: “A change of zone is a legislative act. A town board is not required to even hear an application and can summarily elect-not-to consider the application — in this case it would have to be an application for a change of zone to L2 (Heavy Industrial)."

"On the issue of a use variance, the bar is generally extremely high if you look at the number of use variances granted over the past few decades, under the law,” he added.

Suffolk County said it does not participate in ICE’s local immigration enforcement partnership. Nassau County has a pact with ICE and last year detained upward of 2,600 immigrants at the county jail in East Meadow.

Protester Lisa Sevimli said it's all personal for her. Her son-in-law, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, is concerned each day when he goes to work that he will be detained, she said. The Trump administration has targeted the DACA program, which protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. More broadly, the administration said it is conducting its deportation campaign for national security reasons.

Recent immigration raids have shaken Sevimli's Patchogue community, she said, leaving some fearful of going outside their homes. 

"I know people that are afraid to go food shopping. I know people that are afraid to go to the laundromat or afraid to go to the doctor’s appointment or even go to the schools to pick up their kids or go to work," Sevimli said.

"It affects our daily lives, every single day," she said.

Newsday's Sandra Peddie contributed to this story.

By Tiffany Cusaac-Smith

tiffany.cusaac-smith@newsday.com@T_Cusaac

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith is a general assignment reporter for Newsday. She previously worked at USA TODAY and is an alum of Howard University.