Beyond Burlington — ICE Detention in New England

by Todd Palmer

More than 7,000 Massachusetts residents have been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the first 15 months of the Trump administration, a rate nearly five times that under the Biden administration. 

Most arrested people are initially taken to the ICE office in Burlington, which is a “hold room” in ICE terminology. From Burlington, they should be transferred to a long-term detention facility within hours. Some of those transfers are to remote locations in places such as Louisiana, Georgia and Texas, but others are to detention facilities right here in New England. 

With the release of ICE data from the Deportation Data Project available through March 10, 2026, I sought to answer the following questions: 

• Where are these facilities? 
• What kind of facilities are they? 
• How many people are they holding for ICE? 
• What public records exist about conditions there?

I learned that ICE is transferring people to county jails, a federal prison, a state correctional facility, and a quasi-public corporation-run detention center. In the sections that follow, I will review each facility that has held an average of 50 people or more for ICE in 2025 and through March 10, 2026.

The trend chart below shows some effects of Operation Patriot (May 2025), but surprisingly little effect from Patriot 2.0 (September 2025). Operation Catch-of-the-Day in Maine (late January 2026) also shows some effect.

The map above shows all the detention facilities in use by ICE. The population data (number of people detained) for each facility revealed four large centers, each holding over 100 people on average. Medical counts reflect persons taken into custody while hospitalized, and detainees brought to health care facilities for treatment.

Plymouth County Correctional Facility

Plymouth has held an average of 463 men over the specified time period. Plymouth detains people for ICE under an Inter-Governmental Service Agreement, or “detention bed contract.” This facility has been working with ICE since 1998.

Prior to the IGSA being renewed in September 2024, the Boston University School of Law and Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts prepared an excellent report titled “Chronicling 25 Years of Violations: ICE Detention at Plymouth County Correctional Facility.”

The authors spent eight months conducting interviews with detained men and comparing conditions to the requirements of the ICE National Detention Standards. In category after category, the interviews with detained people revealed “alarming disregard for the safety and wellbeing of those detained at Plymouth.” A key conclusion of the report: “Civil rights violations at Plymouth are a feature, not a bug.”

All four men arrested at the Allston Car Wash in November 2025 were transferred to Plymouth. A Federal Tort Claims Act complaint filed by seven of the workers alleges that two of the men, Dairo and José, were “subjected to inhumane conditions, including insufficient, nutritionally inadequate, and often inedible food, and near freezing temperatures” and “were only provided thin blankets.”

Federal Correctional Institution Berlin

FCI Berlin is a medium security federal prison for men and houses an average of 182 ICE detainees. Berlin is in the northernmost county in New Hampshire.

ICE began using Berlin on March 5, 2025, imprisoning 12 men. This number rose rapidly to a peak of 334 in May and has been declining ever since. Berlin appears to be one of four federal Bureau of Prisons sites used by ICE. In fact, Berlin is one of two places in the U.S. where detained immigrants are being held with convicted criminals.

The remoteness of FCI Berlin is an issue for those transferred from Massachusetts. Lawyers and families are forced to make a three-hour drive to visit. ICE is not present in BoP facilities, which delays detainees’ immigration paperwork, notice about court dates, and even their release.

The Rev. Annie Gonzalez, a board member at Boston Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Network, said her group has lost all contact with people moved to Berlin. “It’s really terrifying when people can’t reach their loved one, especially right now as people are sent off to prisons in foreign countries or disappeared completely,” she said.

Thiago Bastos, a Hyannis resident, was transferred to FCI Berlin in May 2025. He was not allowed to appear for his trial on charges of operating under the influence, leading the judge to dismiss the case. Bastos said of the conditions at FCI Berlin, “I have a friend, he has ulcers — he’s been spitting up blood. They won’t get him to do an endoscopy.”

Strafford County Jail

Strafford is located in Dover, New Hampshire, and has a capacity of 495 beds. The jail averages 126 ICE detainees at a time. Strafford takes both men and women, with women making up about 13% of those detained for ICE. Strafford has been holding ICE detainees since 2009.

While I was unable to find any reports of recent issues, there is a concerning history at Strafford regarding sexual abuse of female prisoners, and financial corrruption by leadership. 

Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira, the Brazilian woman who was arrested in a chaotic scene on Eureka Street in Worcester last May, ended up spending five months at Strafford before being granted asylum. She said of the other immigrant women detained there, “Everyone was desperate. There was a lot of crying.”

Democratic state representatives in Strafford County have called for county commissioners to renegotiate the multimillion-dollar contract to hold only detainees facing criminal charges and to bar detainees who face only civil violations.

Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility

The Wyatt facility is in Central Falls, Rhode Island. With a total capacity of 730 men and 40 women, it holds an average of 106 ICE detainees at any one time. Wyatt’s main mission is to house defendants pre-trial for the U.S. Marshals Service. Wyatt has a long and troubled history of detaining people for ICE.

In 2008, Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng died while at the facility due to medical neglect after symptoms of his liver cancer were ignored. ICE ended its contract with Wyatt that year. In early 2019, Wyatt signed a new contract with ICE under pressure from bondholders.

Wyatt is run by the quasi-public Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation. But the original vision of retired U.S. Marshal Donald W. Wyatt, for whom the facility is named, was that it would be “an economic boon for Central Falls.” Former CFDCFC Chair Daniel Cooney said, “Frankly, I’m looking at it like I’m running a Motel 6. I don’t care if it’s Guantanamo Bay, we want to fill the beds.”

Fabian Schmidt was sent to Wyatt after being detained at Logan Airport in March 2025 as he returned from his native Germany. Fabian said in a message to his fiancée, “Time moves differently in here. It drags, heavy and cruel…. I haven’t seen the sky in weeks.”

In March 2019, Central Falls Mayor James Diossa said, “Not only is [Wyatt] unsustainable and broken, it stands as a massive brick and barbed wire monument to out-of-control capitalism, corporate greed and social injustice.” Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance Rhode Island has been working to shut down Wyatt since March 28, 2019.

Cumberland County Jail

The Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Maine, is the largest jail in the state. It houses men and women, with a total capacity of 600. In 2025, it held an average of 60 people (29% women) for ICE. Then, on January 22, 2026, the population fell to zero.

The reason behind the drop is quite a story. Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce took issue with the fact that during Operation Catch-of-the-Day, ICE arrested one of his officer recruits, who the sheriff says was legally allowed to work in the U.S.

ICE responded by transferring all of its detainees out of state, leading to frantic calls from people telling their lawyers that they were being moved. People were moved to FCI Berlin, Wyatt, PCCF, and Burlington. Data for the Burlington facility shows a spike matching the facility’s all-time high of 130 on January 23.

The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners voted in April to remove ICE from its contract with the U.S. Marshals Service.

Other New England facilities

ICE has used some other facilities in New England, but at a much smaller scale. None has held more than 25 people for ICE in 2025 or 2026. 

Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset, Maine, has held an average of 13 men. 

The Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, Vermont, averages 11 detainees, and the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, Vermont, averages five women detainees.

Conclusion

We have reviewed a county jail with a 25-year record of violations, a federal prison so remote that lawyers and families struggle to maintain contact, and a quasi-public maximum-security detention center. People being detained for civil immigration violations do not belong in facilities like these. 

They should not be detained at all, as U.S. District Court judges have ruled 10,400 times — in 90% of cases brought against this administration.

From county jails to federal prisons to the horror show of Wyatt, these facilities are being utilized for the mass detention of civilians without trial, which is the very definition of a concentration camp, per expert Andrea Pitzer. This cannot be allowed to stand.

You can help

Please consider joining one of the protests in Burlington or Plymouth, donating to AMOR to help with the “Shut Down Wyatt” campaign, and learning more about the brutal realities of our immigration system.

Todd Palmer is a member of the IMC Immigration Justice Action Team and Greater Assabet Indivisible Network.

IndivisiBlog posts reflect the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policy positions of Indivisible Mass Coalition.