What Happens Inside
This isn't just an office building.
From 250 Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo, ICE runs the machinery of terror across all of western and upstate New York.
The Command Center
250 Delaware is one of only 25 ICE field offices nationwide. It controls everything that happens in upstate and Western New York, every region outside of NYC.
Sub-offices in Albany, Syracuse, Batavia, and Champlain all take orders from here.
Buffalo field office and sub-offices.
Source: ICE.gov
The scale
In 2025 alone: 7,258 people were taken into custody across upstate and Western New York.
Every arrest. Every raid. Every deportation order.
All coordinated from 250 Delaware Avenue.
What Happens Behind Closed Door
Based on limited information from ICE's own published structure, supplemented by accounts from advocates and journalists, here is what we know happens inside this building.
Holding cells
People are detained inside this building—including children. According to the 245 days of data available collected by the Deportation Data Project (June 2025 - February 2026):
- 233 people were detained at the facility. That is nearly one new person captured and held each day.
- 32 children abducted from their families were held here, including a 2-year-old.
- Over half detained longer than 24 hours
- Nearly a third held more than 3 days
Then most are transferred thousands of miles away—to Louisiana, Texas, Ohio, Florida—far from families, lawyers, and communities.
Source: Deportation Data Project
Raid Coordination
From this building, ICE plans and executes raids across the entire region. Recent operations coordinated from 250 Delaware that has attacked our own community:
- 5 Buffalo Bills stadium construction workers detained
- Popular Western New York supermarket raided
- Farm workers targeted during landmark unionization effort
- Dozens arrested in coordinated WNY sweeps
Source: Investigative Post
Arrests-by Appointment
ICE orders people to appear for “routine check-ins” at 250 Delaware, then arrests them when they show up.
Dolores Bustamante Romero's story
In April 2026, Dolores, a 54-year-old farmworker advocate and asylum seeker who came to the US in 2003, was arrested at a check-in appointment at 250 Delaware.
“I will go to my check-in because I have tried to do things the right way. I have been in court for more than 10 years, trying to navigate my case the right way. I pay my taxes, and I contribute to this community's economy. I have committed no crimes.”
She was transferred the same day. First to Ohio, then Louisiana, before a court order mandated her return to New York. After more than a month in detention a federal judge ordered her release, ruling that ICE had violated her due process rights.
Sources: ICE now targeting Afghans, rule followers, ICE seizes advocate for migrant farmworkers
Detention & Disappearance
From 250 Delaware, ICE makes people disappear.
Detention orders are issued. Secret charter flights are booked. Families and lawyers are left in the dark.
Where people go
Most are sent to the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, a facility criticized for cruel, inhumane conditions:
- Over capacity since June 2025
- Detainees spend 18 hours a day in cells
- Inadequate medical treatment
- June 2024: ~40 detainees staged hunger strike over conditions
Others are transferred thousands of miles away to Texas, Louisiana, Ohio, and Florida—severing them from their support systems.
Sources: ICE Removal Operations, Kennedy Human Rights (Batavia facility), Democracy Now (hunger strike)
Surveillance
Every member of the community is being watched.
Your movements are being tracked and it all feeds back to 250 Delaware.
ICE's surveillance tools:
- License plate reader networks (including Flock Safety cameras in Buffalo, Amherst, and Cheektowaga)
- Social media monitoring
- Location data purchased from commercial brokers
- App data, utility records, driver's license databases
Everything collected. Everything analyzed. All from this address.
Sources: 404 Media, Vanderbilt Law
This Building Is the Problem
250 Delaware Avenue isn't just where ICE has offices.
It's the nerve center for a system of terror that reaches every corner of upstate New York.
The lease expires March 2027.
We can end this.
The lease expires March 2027.
The decision is Uniland's. But the pressure is ours.