Orange County lawmakers oppose proposed ICE detention center in Newburgh

Orange County Legislature’s Rules Committee unanimously approved a resolution opposing a proposed ICE immigration processing and/or detention center in the Town of Newburgh, putting county lawmakers on record against the project. The vote followed a unanimous Town of Newburgh Town Board decision to oppose the plan, after dozens of residents and activists gathered outside Town Hall to protest it.

The committee action gives Orange County an official position, but the fight is now spread across several levels of government. The Town of Newburgh board has already voted to oppose what Radio Catskill described as a detention warehouse, and the town posted its own notice titled ICE Detention Facility Opposed by Town of Newburgh. Those moves do not settle the federal siting question on their own, but they give local officials a formal record to use as they argue that the project has no support in the community it would affect.

The political pressure widened further on July 22, when U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand issued a press release calling for “truth, transparency, and public accountability” about the proposed ICE detention facility in Newburgh. Their intervention pushed the issue beyond Town Hall and the county legislature and into the federal delegation, where scrutiny can shape how much public detail ICE and other agencies are forced to provide.

The proposal has become a countywide fault line because Orange County legislators had already unanimously passed a resolution opposing a proposed ICE facility in Chester earlier in 2026. Taken together, the Chester and Newburgh votes show a growing local pattern of resistance to ICE-related facilities, with elected officials, residents and activists aligned against projects they say could change the character of neighborhoods, intensify pressure on public services, and raise concerns about transportation, public safety and community relations.

For Newburgh, the next political test is whether the county’s full Legislature turns the Rules Committee’s unanimous vote into a broader county stance. Whatever happens next, the debate has already moved from a single proposal to a wider fight over federal immigration enforcement, local control and how much weight Orange County leaders can bring to bear when a major project lands in the Town of Newburgh.