The Hudson River Park Trust—a New York State and City partnership that manages land on Manhattan’s West Side—says it will not be renewing its contract to provide parking facilities to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), after a Sludge report drew public attention to the arrangement.
The Trust holds a contract worth up to $797,358 to “provide secure parking places” at Pier 40 for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE, and its Enforcement and Removal Operations division, according to USAspending. The contract, which began in June 2021, paid the organization $169,036 last August when the government exercised an option to extend it.
“The Trust is currently in the last year of a five-year parking contract that commenced during the previous federal administration and does not intend to renew the contract,” the Trust told Sludge.
The Trust has contracted with ICE since 2004 and renewed the contract four times, most recently in 2021. The contract currently has a planned end date of June 30, 2026.
“At its creation, the Hudson River Park Trust inherited a 2,000-space public parking garage and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been contracting for a small number of parking spaces since the early 2000s,” the Trust statement said. “The contract is confined to the provision of parking spaces, and the Trust has no engagement related to enforcement.”
The Hudson River Park Trust has received $1.92 million in contract obligations from ICE for parking since 2004, according to federal contract data. The public benefit corporation, which maintains parks and public facilities along several miles of shoreline, is overseen by a 13-member board, with members named by the governor, mayor, and Manhattan borough president.
A state government official told Sludge that there are 35 spots for ICE at Pier 40. A new item from Hell Gate shows photos of what are likely to be the parked ICE vans.
Sludge first reported the ICE dollars flowing to the Hudson River Park Trust in a 2018 story on city governments that contract with ICE despite adopting policies, often called "sanctuary city” or "welcoming city” policies, that place limits on coordination with federal immigration agencies.
Since 2017, New York City law has prohibited “use of city property” being “utilized for immigration enforcement.”
Sludge’s 2018 story on the Pier 40 parking contract with ICE was brought to the attention of Councilmember Carlos Menchaca by a city resident. Menchaca held a hearing in the Immigration Committee on ICE’s coordination with city entities, and introduced a bill, Intro 1092 of 2018, that would have banned New York City from contracting with entities that engage in immigration enforcement. The bill expired without receiving a Council vote. At the hearing, a Trust official stated that as the organization is not a city agency, the city does not control its contracts. The Trust's current contract with ICE was renewed a few years later.
On Sept. 12, 2018, the New York City Council approved a resolution, whose sponsors included Menchaca, calling on Congress to pass, and the president to sign, legislation abolishing the ICE agency.
In December, advocates rallied to urge the New York City Council to advance four bills to bolster protections for immigrant communities before the legislative session ended. One of the bills, Intro 1412, the Safer Sanctuary Act, passed the Council on Dec. 18, but was vetoed on Dec. 31 by former Mayor Eric Adams. The bill, whose passage was cheered by the group the Immigrant Defense Project, would have barred ICE from maintaining an office on Rikers Island or Department of Corrections sites. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has criticized ICE’s raids, which in New York City are mostly arresting people with no criminal charges or convictions.
See all ICE contractors nationwide since the start of the second Trump administration, on our interactive map:
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