Upstate Hospital workers describe ICE detentions, fear in Syracuse workforce

Two Upstate University Hospital workers said ICE detentions have shaken their lives and left Syracuse coworkers worried about who could be taken next. One man, Dama Ka, was arrested at Syracuse Hancock International Airport while heading to Atlanta to watch the World Cup and was released hours later, but he now wears an ankle monitor. Mohamed Fofana, detained since an arrest in November 2025, returned home to Syracuse after a federal judge granted habeas corpus relief.

Ka said he believed he already had legal protection when officers stopped him at the airport. Fofana described a much longer ordeal that began on Nov. 11, 2025, when ICE agents arrested him on the streets of the Hawley-Green neighborhood. He was sent to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia after his arrest, then moved through detention before coming back to Syracuse earlier this month.

For Upstate, the detentions cut directly into the workforce at one of Central New York’s biggest institutions. SUNY Upstate Medical University describes itself as the region’s largest employer and the only academic medical center in Central New York, with its materials listing more than 11,000 employees and another page putting the number at 9,460. Fofana had already completed several weeks of training and was supposed to start work at the hospital the day after he was arrested.

The cases have rippled beyond the two men themselves. Ali Cottrell, president of CSEA Local 615, said coworkers were left asking who might be next after a string of detentions involving Upstate workers. In November 2025, WSYR-TV reported that Alcibiades Lazaro Ramirez Gonzalez and Yannier Vazquez Hildago were also detained by ICE, and community members held a vigil for three detained Upstate workers that same month. Later, Alex González and Yan Vázquez were released after months in custody.

Cottrell said at a vigil that "These are people that are family members, community members." That fear has taken on practical meaning for a hospital system that depends on steady staffing and trained workers to keep care moving. Ka’s ankle monitor and Fofana’s months in detention show how immigration enforcement can disrupt jobs, family life and the continuity of care at a major Syracuse hospital in a matter of hours, with no clear end point for the people caught in the system.