NY DIGNITY NOT DETENTION ACT
S316 Salazar /A4181 Reyes
victory!
The Dignity Not Detention coalition is celebrating a historic victory. Years of organizing by immigrant communities have delivered an end to immigration detention in New York State, as the budget adopted by the state legislature on May 21, 2026, says local jails must terminate all existing ICE detention contracts within 180 days of the budget’s adoption. In addition, any future agreements are banned, making it harder for ICE to expand detention in New York State. This happened because directly impacted immigrants, their loved ones, and everyday New Yorkers across the state organized, showed up, and refused to be ignored. Jorge (not his real name) knows what this means. Detained at Orange County Jail in 2021, he describes it plainly: “The rooms were so small, there was no recreation, no time outside, we were held inside for months. Knowing that immigration detention is ending there brings me real relief. No one should have to experience what I went through.”
This legislation is long overdue. Immigration detention is–and always has been–cruel, inhumane, and unjust. As part of its latest deportation dragnet, ICE has rapidly expanded detention contracts in New York State and has used local facilities to detain and transfer immigrant New Yorkers to detention centers across the country. ICE will no doubt try to continue its tactics, but it will no longer be able to use state and local resources to lock up our community members. We will continue to fight for the freedom of immigrant New Yorkers, including those whom ICE cruelly transfers, and to work in solidarity with communities across the country to end this costly, deadly, and inhumane system of detention. To anyone who says limiting this kind of collusion invites greater enforcement, enforcement has already expanded exponentially, and New York’s job is to protect its residents.
This is not the end. Until New York for All is passed, local law enforcement can still collude with ICE in other ways to funnel our neighbors into the deportation machine. We demand that the State Senate, and the State Assembly pass New York for All (S2235A/A3506B) now, and that the Governor sign it into law. Our communities deserve complete protection, not half measures. This is what people-power looks like. We fight on.
THE PROBLEM
On any given night, hundreds of New Yorkers are detained by ICE in jails and prisons across the state. They are subjected to inhumane conditions and separated from their families and communities. Although New York became a leader in banning private prisons in the criminal legal system in 2007, it is falling behind when it comes to protecting immigrant New Yorkers. Several counties in New York profit from immigration detention and ICE is actively expanding detention in New York as part of its unprecedented expansion nationwide.
THE SOLUTION
The New York Dignity Not Detention Act (S316 Salazar /A4181 Reyes) gets New York State out of the business of immigration detention. When immigrants and communities can live in dignity and freedom, we’ll create a more welcoming state for all who call New York home.
WHAT DOES THE BILL DO?
- Prohibits any person or entity in the state of New York from owning or operating immigrant detention facilities (i.e. state prisons, county jails, hospitals).
- Prohibits any entity in New York from entering into new immigrant detention contracts and from receiving any payments related to immigrant detention.
- Prohibits any entity in New York from renewing any existing immigrant detention contracts.
- Requires any governmental entities in New York with existing immigrant detention contracts to exercise the termination provision in the contract.
HOW DOES THIS BILL HELP NEW YORKERS?
Keeps New York families and communities together
- Under the Trump administration’s agenda of mass deportations, any cooperation with federal agencies puts New Yorkers’ lives at risk. The availability of detention space leads to an increase in ICE arrests, which means allowing immigration detention in NY State prisons and jails results in an increased ICE presence in our communities.
- Immigration detention dehumanizes the individuals detained and harms and traumatizes their loved ones and communities.
- Forced separation from parents, even when brief, can have severely detrimental effects on children, including triggering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress. This reinforces the urgent need to keep New Yorkers out of detention and with their families.
Protects people from harm
- Conditions in detention cause neglect, abuse, and even torture for people inside detention. Detained people regularly experience racist harassment and abuse from guards and staff as well as unsanitary water, inadequate food, and medical neglect, resulting in long-term trauma and disability in immigrant communities. New York must divest from ICE detention to keep New York communities healthy and safe.
- The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the public health dangers of detention. However, horrific conditions in ICE detention in NY State prisons and jails continue. In October 2025, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest published a report detailing persistent medical neglect and mistreatment in ICE detention at Orange County Jail in Goshen, NY.
Maintains New York’s commitment to immigrants’ rights and racial justice
Similar legislation has already been passed and signed into law in New Jersey (S3361, A5207), Maryland (SB 478), California (SB 29, AB 103), Washington (SB 5497, HB1090), Illinois (SB0667), Colorado (HB23-100), and just this year, New Mexico (HB9).
New York does not believe that entities should profit from imprisonment. In 2007, New York passed legislation that prohibited the operation of private prisons in the state and committed itself to end incarceration for profit. The New York Dignity Not Detention Act, introduced in 2021, closes a loophole that has allowed immigrant New Yorkers to be prisoners for profit in New York for many years. This legislation will put New York back as a leading state in immigrants’ rights.
- Maintains New York’s commitment to protecting immigrant communities. By stopping ICE from caging immigrant New Yorkers statewide, the Dignity Not Detention Act will put into practice the state’s values of protecting immigrant communities from family separation and its long-term, traumatic impact within New York communities.
- Strengthens New York’s commitment to racial justice. Immigrant detention targets Black and Latiné communities. By ending its contracts with ICE, New York will defend and support Black and Latiné communities who are constantly threatened with anti-Black, anti-immigrant violence perpetuated by right-wing extremists and their enablers.
Take Action!
Make your support for the New York Dignity Not Detention Act loud and clear:
> Contact your elected officials. Post to your social accounts.
> Give to support the material needs of our detained community members and their families.
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