600 Colvin Woods Parkway Detainment Facility

The Clean Air Coalition of WNY and Showing Up for Racial Justice Buffalo (SURJ Buffalo) held a vigil on January 22 near the Customs & Border Patrol detention facility at 600 Colvin Woods Parkway in Tonawanda to call attention to the lawless violence of federal immigration agents here in Western New York as well as in other places like Minneapolis.

In 2025 alone, 32 detainees held by ICE died, the largest number of deaths in a single year since 2004, with December 2025 representing the deadliest month to date for the agency. This is partly a result of the reckless expansion of the immigration detention system, which cages people in inhumane conditions indefinitely without adequate due process. Here in Western New York, immigration agents have rapidly transformed spaces into jails, including the facility on Colvin Woods Parkway.

As our national attention is drawn to the horrific violence ICE and CBP are inflicting on the people of Minneapolis, these same agencies are terrorizing, abducting, and detaining residents of Tonawanda without due process while our elected officials have remained silent. The town’s failure to act is rapidly eroding trust between the community and our local, state and federal government.

We appreciate that the town government responded to our vigil with a statement acknowledging that the community does not want local police or other agencies to collude with federal immigration agents. Similar, we applaud Mayor Sean Ryan and the City of Buffalo signing the recent executive order clarifying that city employees may not collude with CBP, ICE, DHS or other federal agencies over civil matters.

However, these words are meaningless without action and without enforcement. The town claims that the TTPD do not collaborate with ICE or CBP, but the Investigative Post has documented collusion between the TTPD and Border Patrol agents. The town must hold TTPD officers who collude with ICE and CBP accountable, and specifically address relations between TTPD and CBP concerning civil matters.

The town must also take action against the privately-owned detention facility within an office park that CBP leases at 600 Colvin Woods Parkway. The facility is visible from one of the town’s most popular parks and neighbors a church as well as residential areas, forcing our entire community to watch as our neighbors’ basic human rights are violated by a lawless federal agency. The Town Board’s silence on this facility is unacceptable.

Clean Air and SURJ Buffalo call on Town of Tonawanda officials to take the following actions:

• Use zoning enforcement and health and safety related building codes to inspect conditions for detainees at the 600 Colvin Woods Parkway facility and issue any appropriate fines to Customs & Border Patrol and their landlord Government Investment Partners for inappropriate use of the Colvin Woods facility. This parcel is zoned as Mixed Use Industrial (MU-I) , but detainment of inmates is limited to the public safety campus areas of Community Facility Districts, a subset of Special Purpose Districts. The facility was sold to GIP after the new zoning code became official, and we feel this sale should have eliminated grandfathered status and triggered a zoning appeal process. We recognize this is a relatively novel use of zoning, but we urge public officials to consider creative tactics to resist the unprecedented harmful acts of this administration. We also recognize direct inspection of the facility may require the assistance of Congressmember Kennedy, and we urge Town officials to request this support if necessary.
• Pass a non-collusion resolution that would impose consequences on any Town of Tonawanda government agents who collude with federal immigration agents
• Pass a resolution supporting the adoption of the New York for All Act and directly request that our representatives in Albany take rapid action to adopt this legislation immediately

Clean Air and SURJ Buffalo also urge our members and residents of the Town of Tonawanda to contact Town Supervisor Joe Emminger, and other members of the Town Board, to urge them to take action. We also urge contacting Congressmember Kennedy’s office.

Just like the people of Minneapolis, the people of Tonawanda love our neighbors, and we reject narratives of hate and fear that seek to divide us. We call on the Town Board to join us in protecting and supporting our community.

If you are a Clean Air member and would like to join these efforts, please reach out to Bridge.