Officials react with caution to news ICE is no longer looking at Chester warehouse

New York State Assemblyman Brian Maher said last week that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informed him that the federal agency is not moving forward with purchasing the warehouse at 29 Elizabeth Drive in the Village of Chester.

The announcement came via a Friday, Feb. 20, press release from Maher’s Chief of Staff Meghan Hurlburt.

Maher, who is deployed militarily overseas, had a virtual meeting with a “senior advisor to the director of ICE” who told him that the former Pep Boys warehouse in Chester was “among dozens of sites evaluated” by an outside vendor that worked with ICE.

During the call, according to Hurlburt, Maher expressed concerns regarding the proposed location and the area’s infrastructure limitations and “conveyed the unified bipartisan opposition from local elected officials and community members who had raised serious concerns about the site.”

“Following the meeting, Assemblyman Maher received confirmation from ICE that its review process had concluded and that the agency would not be moving forward with the Chester site at this time,” Hurlburt wrote in the press release.

Attempts to confirm Maher’s announcement with ICE were unsuccessful.

The announcement comes a week after an ICE spokesperson released – and then retracted – a statement that the agency had purchased the warehouse. Similar retractions were made regarding warehouses in Roxbury, N.J., Lebanon, Tenn., and other areas of the country.

Regarding Roxbury, which is in Morris County, ICE announced it purchased a warehouse there last Wednesday, retracted that statement a day later only to have the purchase made official that Friday.

As in Chester, officials in Roxbury are against the purchase.

‘Trust but verify’

Local officials, including Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, reacted with caution to the news that ICE no longer has its sights set on Chester.

“I’m a Ronald Reagan type guy – ‘trust but verify’ – so I’m still skeptical and I want everybody to have their guard up and I have said that to Brian Maher and everybody else,” Neuhaus said in a Feb. 24 video posted on social media. “This is not a time to do a victory dance because (ICE has said) they were coming and then not coming before so we need to be vigilant and have our guard up.”

Neuhaus said he’s been in touch with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Maher about the matter.

Town of Chester Supervisor Brandon Holdridge agreed with the county executive’s sentiments.

“I know (Brian Maher) and trust he believes what he’s been told,” Holdridge said last Friday. “However, ICE has already retracted multiple statements, so I will need to see something directly from ICE before I am even close to comfortable that this is a final decision.”

The property, according to The Washington Post, was proposed to be part of a larger plan to house 80,000 individuals nationwide in warehouses that will be converted into holding facilities.