PORT CHESTER — Jirandy Martinez's voice trembled with anger as she talked about the deportation push that has swept up immigrants in Westchester County and left children to wonder if their parents will be next.
"It is unacceptable that in this country, where they're supposed to be safe, they're worried about whether or not they'll see their parents again," said Martinez, executive director of the Community Resource Center, a Mamaroneck-based nonprofit that provides support services for immigrants.
Martinez was part of a small group of clergy, elected officials and other local leaders who gathered in a Port Chester park on Thursday, Sept. 3, to denounce the federal roundups. New data shows more than 19,000 immigrants have been arrested in New York
by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since President Donald Trump returned to office last year and launched a crackdown to expel undocumented immigrants.
And the Westchester village and longtime immigrant hub where Martinez and the others met to speak out was a standout for arrests. The ICE figures showed that over 16 months starting in April 2025, agents had picked up 182 people either from Port Chester or who were stopped in the village through Aug. 1.
The flood of information on New York arrests and detentions was obtained from ICE and posted recently by the Deportation Data Project, an academic research group that has been collecting the information through public-records requests and making it available to all online.
The Sept. 3 gathering in Port Chester to rebuke the ICE arrests was organized by Pastor Jim O'Hanlon of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rye Brook. Its opening speaker was a leader of his Christian denomination: Bishop Katrina Foster, who oversees the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In her speech, Bishop Foster invoked the principle of welcoming strangers and condemned the arrests of immigrants who aren't criminals and who are contributing to their communities and the economy.
"These people are our neighbors," she said. "They are our family members, they are in our churches, our shuls. They are not a threat. The threat is authoritarian violence, masquerading behind an American flag and a mask."
Details on ICE arrests in NY
The latest records posted by the Deportation Data Project show arrests through Aug. 6, adding five months of data to what was previously available. And for the first time, the researchers — based at the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles — got ICE to identify the cities and towns in which the arrests took place, offering a more detailed look at where the federal enforcement has been most active.
The bulk of the nearly 19,400 listed arrests took place in New York City. Among the highest totals in much smaller cities around the state: Buffalo, 1,123; Rochester, 630; Syracuse, 439; and Albany, 259.
The statewide count largely excludes a surge of more recent activity: a major enforcement push that federal agents conducted in the downstate area over the last several weeks.
More than 2,100 immigrants were arrested in one month in New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley during "Operation Rotten Apple," staged from July 27 to Aug. 29, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced at a press conference on Sept. 1.
Mullin labeled the arrested immigrants "criminals" and "the worst of the worst," displaying mugshots of several who were said to have been convicted of rape or other serious crimes. But he also made clear agents were arresting anyone without legal status in the U.S., even if they have no criminal records or pending charges.
“If you’re here illegally, regardless of your status, if you’re a convicted criminal or not, you’re still in this country illegally,” he said. “It is our job to hunt you down and to deport you.”
Out of the nearly 19,400 people ICE arrested in New York through Aug. 6, more than two thirds —13,253, or 68% —had no criminal convictions or pending charges, according to the agency's records. Of the others, 3,695 reportedly had a past conviction and 2,446 had pending charges.
Focus on a Hudson Valley immigrant hub
Two Hudson Valley villages in particular have drawn federal attention due to their large immigrant populations. One is Spring Valley, a Rockland County community of 34,000, where federal data indicates 117 ICE arrests have taken place since last year through Aug. 6.
The other is Port Chester, a village of 32,000 in Westchester where 60% of residents are Hispanic and 44% are foreign born. The ICE data lists 182 arrests in Port Chester, though that total may include some Port Chester residents who were arrested in New York City. (What suggests that is some arrests mention 26 Federal Plaza — the Manhattan federal courthouse where ICE agents arrest people who have gone there for immigration case appointments.)
The Port Chester arrests picked up in mid-July and hit a busy stretch in September and October, when they totaled 62 and averaged one a day for those two months. Everyone arrested was Hispanic, with the largest numbers from Ecauador, Guatemala and Mexico.
According to the federal records, 70 of those arrested had convictions, 59 had pending charges and 53 had neither.
At the gathering on Sept. 3, Joan Grangenois-Thomas, a former Port Chester village trustee, vented frustration with village leaders for not speaking out against the spate of ICE arrests.
"For over a year, our residents have been traumatized by the presence of ICE," she said. "Had car windows broken into, yanked from cars, yanked from church service, yanked from bringing their kids to school. And we have heard nothing from our local elected officials."
Rabbi Lester Bronstein, from Bet Am Shalom synagogue in White Plains, also spoke at the gathering, saying ICE had a legitimate purpose when it was created in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but it had been turned into a "modern day Gestapo."
"This has got to stop," he said. "And all of us in the religious community stand up and we say, 'In God's name, let us be the decent humanity that the United States was meant to be.'"
Picked up by ICE in Port Chester and deported
Over the last year, the USA TODAY Network has highlighted several people who were arrested by ICE agents in Port Chester, put into detention and ultimately deported to their home countries without their families.
Milton Guamarrigra, a 43-year-old father of three and volunteer firefighter who had lived in Port Chester for more than 20 years, was arrested on July 29 after leaving his house to go to work. After two months in federal detention, he was sent back to Ecuador on Sept. 22 without his wife, who has a green card, or his kids, who were born in the U.S. and are citizens.
Rafael Morales, an 18-year-old Port Chester High School senior, was arrested Oct. 27 after being confronted by federal agents who were looking for someone else and demanded his identification. Federal records show he was held in federal custody for eight months and finally deported on July 3 back to El Salvador, where he has few relatives.
Juan Esteban Rosas Jimenez, a 22-year-old Dunkin' Donuts worker who was set to start electrician classes at Westchester Community College, was stopped by Port Chester police on Nov. 30 while driving to church with his wife. He was allowed in the U.S. with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and had a work permit. But he was held at the police station for ICE agents and spent four months in federal custody before being sent back to Peru on March 31, according to federal records.
Milton Garcia, a 46-year-old father of two, was arrested by Port Chester police on Jan. 3 for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk, and then taken into custody by federal agents as he left the police station. He was sent back to Guatemala on March 11.
Federal records confirm Guamarrigra was the only one out of the four with any past crimes: a pair of drunken-driving convictions, the most recent of which was for an arrest that happened 20 years before ICE agents came for him. None of the other three — Morales, Rosas Jimenez and Garcia — had any criminal record or pending charges.
Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA TODAY Network. Reach him at CMcKenna@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: New data reveals 19,000 ICE arrests in NY. These places had the most
