BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Framing Effect, and Anecdotal, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.5% saturation with 159 hits. Analysis detected 967 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,095 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 28% and a BS Rank of 20% (22,739 of 28,112 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 80.90% of the article peer group.
Guards working at ICE’s detention center in Batavia make good money.
The base wage for an armed officer working at the detention center is $38.97 per hour, or $81,000 annually.
Senior guards earn hourly base pay of $43.41, or $90,000 per year.
Those guards are employed by a subcontractor.
ICE also has 73 “detention and removal directors” at the Batavia facility who earn an average of $102,000 annually.
That’s all before overtime and bonuses.
Compare that to the median income of a Genesee County resident, which stands at $37,600, according to U.S.
Census data .
The county’s median household income is $73,000.
Starting pay for a Buffalo police officer, by comparison, is around $57,000.
Since December 2024, Investigative Post has sought to learn more about the local ICE employees carrying out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” that President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail.
In response to Freedom of Information Act requests from Investigative Post, ICE has refused to release any information about its employees in the Buffalo office, which covers 19 counties in Western and Central New York.
But last year, ICE did partially fulfill a Freedom of Information Act request from Investigative Post related to staffing at the Batavia facility.
That, plus a collective bargaining agreement between the armed guards and Akima Global Services, the contractor that hires them, sheds new light on the people staffing the detention center.
Additional data, published online by New York State , reveals the names of 18 attorneys working for ICE, all assigned to the agency’s offices on the 7th floor of 250 Delaware Avenue.
The majority joined ICE during the decade between 2011 and 2021, covering the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations.
Ten of the 18 graduated from the University at Buffalo’s law school.
Together, those documents provide a rare window into who works for the ICE detention center and how they’re paid at a time when the agency is flush with cash, on a hiring spree and detaining more migrants than ever before.
Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for the advocacy group Justice For Migrant Families, said he was not surprised to learn that ICE detention guards make good money.
“To keep the town being a prison town, they have to keep the workers happy,” he said.
“It’s a wild amount of money.
And that’s taxpayer money.
That’s money that we are paying for luxury salaries.”
The ICE employee data obtained by Investigative Post lists 73 people working as detention and removal directors as of September 2024.
ICE contracts with Akima Global Services to staff the remainder of the facility’s detention officers.
Custodians, kitchen staff and providers of religious services work for companies including Eastern Janitorial, Chenga Corp. and Jesuit Refugee Service USA.
The total number of employees was not disclosed.
Of the direct ICE employees, 61 are men and 12 are women.
Their pay ranged from $55,000 to $150,000.
On average, the men earned more than the women — $106,000 annually compared to $95,000.
Those at the top of the pay scale earned between $136,000 and $146,000 annually.
The data also lists bonuses paid to the directors, ranging from $840 to $3,300.
The average was $1,600.
ICE does not advertise who is in charge of the facility, but federal lawsuits list Philip Rhoney as the director of the Buffalo Field Office and Joseph Freden as the deputy field office director, in charge of the detention center.
Their salaries were not readily available.
What the union contract shows
In addition to the data released by ICE, Investigative Post gleaned details about the Akima Global Services contractors, who are unionized as the Buffalo Detention Officers Union, via their collective bargaining agreement.
That three-year contract expires at the end of the month.
The contract states detention guards received pay raises of 7 percent raises in 2024 and 4 percent in 2025 and 2026.
Vacation time for officers is determined by seniority, maxing out at five weeks after 15 years on the job.
For sick time, those with more than six years of employment get 12 days annually.
Officers also receive health insurance and a 401(k) plan from Akima Global Services.
The employee and employer contributions to those plans were not spelled out in the agreement.
Converted to pay, fringe benefits are worth $8.18 per hour, according to the agreement.
In exchange for those benefits, officers agree to not go on strike.
They must also undergo “annual refresher training” and be gun range certified.
The company maintains a three strike policy before firing officers, though each reprimand can be fought and potentially overturned via arbitration with the union.
Union officials did not respond to an interview request for this story.
Allegations of mistreatment
The well-paid ICE guards have been at the forefront of Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.
Data obtained by Investigative Post shows that the Batavia detention center is frequently over its 650-man capacity, averaging 695 detainees daily since Trump’s return to the White House.
Detentions peaked at nearly 900 in January and February of this year.
That’s resulted in detainees sleeping on mats on the floor, detainees, advocates and lawyers have said.
Interviews, court filings and other documents have further revealed some guards there to be violent towards detainees or dismissive of their concerns.
In February 2024, for example, guards beat, kicked and dragged through the halls a Malian migrant after he refused to sign deportation paperwork, according to a civil rights complaint filed with the federal government.
The man also alleged guards broke his fingers and then refused to treat his injuries.
Last year, a Nigerian man alleged that ICE officers in Batavia delayed medical treatment for his frostbitten fingers until it was too late for a doctor to save them.
He later had parts of six fingers amputated as a result and was later deported.
Other detainees have told Investigative Post that beatings by guards are a common occurrence.
Others said officers were dismissive of their health complaints and denied them proper medical care .
Lack of proper medical treatment has also featured in several federal lawsuits against ICE and the Batavia detention facility.
Overuse of solitary confinement is also common, according to the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights .
The ICE facility is slated to expand.
The agency announced plans earlier this month to construct an auxiliary building on its Batavia campus capable of housing 100 additional detainees.
And last week, the agency confirmed that the immigration court at Batavia will close , leading some attorneys to speculate whether that space, too, will house detainees.
Speakers
4speakers8.7%attributed speech1,000writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coveragePhysicians for Human Rights
17 attributed words18% of attributed speech56% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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