Recent federal lawsuits illustrate ICE's latest tactics in upstate and Western New York: Targeting Afghanis who had nothing to do with the Washington, D.C., shooting and Latino migrants who attend mandatory check-in appointments. 250 Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo has become a site of ICE arrests. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. In recent months, two new patterns have emerged involving ICE arrests across Western New York. First, federal immigration agents are apprehending asylum seekers at their mandated check-in appointments. Second, they’ve ramped up their targeting of Afghan nationals. A half-dozen federal lawsuits filed over the past month illustrate the first: Agents order an asylum seeker with a pending court hearing to show up at an ICE office to “check-in.” The person does so and is immediately detained, despite being in the country legally and having no criminal record or warrant for their arrest. Attorney Matthew Borowski filed four of the lawsuits and said the Trump administration is simply going after “low-hanging fruit.” “That is a very easy way for ICE to boost their arrest numbers,” he said. “None of these people are flight risks or a danger to the community. If you voluntarily show up to your check-in appointment, you’re not a flight risk, right? You’re showing up.” Among those detained at their check-ins is a Venezuelan asylum seeker who had been living in Rochester. He traveled to the ICE office at 250 Delaware Ave. in downtown Buffalo for a January 6 appointment and was promptly arrested. His wife, also an asylum seeker, attended the appointment with her husband but was released to care for their child, a U.S. citizen by virtue of being born here. She was ordered to return to the office the following day. From January through October of last year, ICE data shows that 72 Venezuelan immigrants were arrested across Western New York. Just 13 had criminal records or pending charges. Then there’s the Afghanis. In late November, an Afghani man who had worked with the CIA shot and killed two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. In the weeks that followed, ICE began targeting others Afghanis who had no connection to the crime. Across upstate New York, at least 10 citizens of Afghanistan were arrested following the shooting, according to attorney Sarah Decker, who has pending lawsuits to free three of them. Those 10 arrests of Afghanis in November and December compare to just six from January through October, according to ICE data. “We believe that this is a pattern of enforcement against Afghan nationals,” Decker told Investigative Post. “It violates their constitutional right to not be discriminated against for their national origin.” ICE similarly arrested Iranian immigrants following the U.S. bombing of nuclear sites in Iran in June. In Buffalo, that targeting included agents staking out the home of a West Side man for days who had fled that country. “We believe that they’re looking through their database for Afghan nationals … and then they’ll just target those people using whatever combination of dystopian surveillance dragnet information that they’ve gathered,” Decker said. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. Arrested at check-in appointment The ICE data, obtained and released by lawyers and academics with the Deportation Data Project, shows that Latinos remain the most-targeted group by ICE in Western New York. Migrants from Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala and Venezuela make up 633 of the 1,009 arrests ICE has made between January and October 15, the latest data available. Of that total, 67 percent have no criminal record or pending charges. Three of the lawsuits reviewed by Investigative Post allege ICE arrested Venezuelans who had no criminal record, had pending asylum claims and were living and working in the country legally. The case of Abner Sanchez-Rocca is typical. He entered the United States in September 2024 and was apprehended shortly after crossing the border. They released him on his own recognizance. Sanchez-Rocca then filed an application for asylum. He moved to Albany and was scheduled to appear before an immigration judge in Buffalo in April. On January 6, Sanchez-Rocca reported to the ICE office in Buffalo for a “routine check-in” where he was arrested. That’s the Uniland-owned building that’s home to Delaware North which has become a frequent site of anti-ICE protests. The check-in arrests are happening, attorneys told Investigative Post, because of a federal rule change in July. The Department of Homeland Security ordered all migrants who had entered the country “without inspection” to be detained. That included any migrant who entered outside an official port of entry, even if they turned themselves in to Border Patrol immediately after crossing into the country. Those detentions, DHS ruled, would be indefinite. Migrants arrested under the new rule are not eligible for bond, as they were previously. Potentially hundreds of thousands of migrants were affected by the rule change, attorneys said. “The administration’s take on this is that people who quote-unquote ‘sneak’ into the country should not be rewarded by being eligible for bond,” Decker said. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletters That’s left it up to federal judges to rule whether individual migrants are eligible to be released on bond. In Sanchez-Rocca’s case, he was detained in Batavia for two weeks and was released on bond January 16. Not all migrants are so fortunate. Carlos Sanchez, a Venezuelan migrant with no criminal record was arrested at a check-in appointment in Syracuse in November. On January 2, an immigration judge denied him bond. In a lawsuit seeking his release, Borowski argued the new mandatory detention policy is “in clear violation of the law.” “The practical effect of that is that the government is seeking to make as many people as possible bond-ineligible so they can up their detention capacity,” Decker said. Afghans arrested In the weeks after the shooting of the two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., leadership at the Department of Homeland Security “instructed their agents to specifically target Afghan citizens for arrest and detention by immigration enforcement, regardless of whether they had any connection to the shooting,” one lawsuit alleges. Among the Afghan nationals arrested in upstate New York was Amir Quanbari. At the tail end of 2022, like many of his fellow countrymen, Quanbari fled Afghanistan for the United States. While still living in his home country, he had provided “direct support” to the U.S. military. He came to the United States, his lawyers wrote in a lawsuit, because he feared for his life once the Taliban took over the government. He crossed the Mexican border into California and quickly encountered border agents. He was eventually released on his own recognizance and filed for asylum. He settled in the Buffalo area and found work at the Amazon warehouse in Lancaster. On December 27, he was pulled over by Border Patrol as he left the warehouse and arrested. He’s been detained at the ICE detention center in Batavia since. Aliza Berger, his attorney, said such detentions are “completely arbitrary” and “a net negative.” “It’s really unfortunate, because not only does it put all of these people who are good, hard-working people who contribute to society and have families in a really terrible situation, it also causes people who are following immigration laws to not want to,” she said. “Because if they do, and they attend their check-ins, they attend their meetings, they’re going to be detained. And then what? How does that help?” Decker, in a lawsuit seeking the release of a man known as H.A. in court filings, was more explicit: He was picked up specifically “because of the shooting.” After entering the country in May 2023, border agents released him. He found an apartment in Troy and worked at the Target warehouse in Amsterdam, in the Albany area. DHS agents arrived at his apartment December 2 and arrested him. In a court filing, Adam Khalil, assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York, argued that H.A.’s release into the country was only valid for 60 days and that he must now be detained. Decker argued that H.A. merely had to report to a check-in with ICE after 60 days, which he did. “In the United States, H.A. has goals to … further his education and to continue building a career to support his family,” the lawsuit states. “He does not have a criminal record. Decker said H.A. remains in Batavia. posted 3 months ago - January 29, 2026