I found my way through a little section of the migration-prison infrastructure of western New York recently. Batavia is about 12 miles north of Attica. And Belmont is south by about two hours from Batavia in the Southern Tier, the border with Pennsylvania. I had never been to these places. Attica is notorious. And it just so happened that I was driving through there on the anniversary of the 1971 uprising. I can only imagine, and expect to learn about, how Attica’s remote location faraway from loved ones in downstate New York makes that time inside more difficult. Batavia is not as notorious, but it’s where ICE detains and deports migrants who don’t have the right papers.
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Here’s what the travel process of posting bail looks like, if the judge allows them to post bail, and if they can come up with the money. For folks detained in this region, Batavia is where one goes to post bail regardless of where they’re actually held. On a pleasant fall day like the one I had, the drive to Batavia from Syracuse was about 1:45, with a little bit of thruway construction. Buffalo’s another 45 or so minutes west. There had been an ICE raid in Syracuse the week before where at least five guys were arrested. ICE claimed they were looking for one person, but, as is common practice, they rounded up other folks. After ICE took them into custody, they drove them to Batavia and then transferred them to county jail in Belmont, NY. Belmont is a tiny little town in Allegany County, a jurisdiction that decides to make a little extra cash by renting space in its jail to ICE to detain migrants. In 2006-2007, the Buffalo Detention Center in Batavia transferred over 40% of people to other facilities. The Allegany County Jail detained 179 immigrants during that year.
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Here’s what the travel process of posting bail looks like, if the judge allows them to post bail, and if they can come up with the money. For folks detained in this region, Batavia is where one goes to post bail regardless of where they’re actually held. On a pleasant fall day like the one I had, the drive to Batavia from Syracuse was about 1:45, with a little bit of thruway construction. Buffalo’s another 45 or so minutes west. There had been an ICE raid in Syracuse the week before where at least five guys were arrested. ICE claimed they were looking for one person, but, as is common practice, they rounded up other folks. After ICE took them into custody, they drove them to Batavia and then transferred them to county jail in Belmont, NY. Belmont is a tiny little town in Allegany County, a jurisdiction that decides to make a little extra cash by renting space in its jail to ICE to detain migrants. In 2006-2007, the Buffalo Detention Center in Batavia transferred over 40% of people to other facilities. The Allegany County Jail detained 179 immigrants during that year.
