Apr 1
2025
Feds locking up families, children at Canadian border
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Pedestrian entrance to Rainbow Bridge Customs station. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.
In a departure from past practice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is detaining people — including families with young children — at official ports of entry along the New York-Canada border for as much as two weeks at a time.
In multiple instances since mid-February, families with young children have been detained in cells at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.
An Investigative Post reporter personally confirmed one of those family detentions. In that case, the family was held for two weeks.
Jennifer Connor, a Buffalo advocate for refugees and immigrants, said she has confirmed the detentions of other individuals and families, also lasting as long as two weeks, at the Rainbow and Lewiston-Queenston bridges.
Peace Bridge officials told Investigative Post detentions had occurred there, too.
Connor, executive director of the nonprofit Justice for Migrant Families, said the detentions are “new, egregious and troubling.”
“It’s extremely troubling, and really a moral failing, in my opinion, of our society, that we are detaining children,” she said.
In the past, according to officials, detentions at the bridges lasted no longer than 48 hours. Those detained were then either released or transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then sent to an immigration detention center, such as the one in Batavia.
The Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.
Connor said the longer detentions at the northern border started after President Donald Trump began his second term in late January. She said she’s heard reports of detentions in Champlain, New York, as well.
In a March case reported by NPR, a mother and her children were detained at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit for five days, an experience the mother described as a “kidnapping.” The family had accidentally crossed the bridge into Canada and turned around, at which point they were detained.
Connor called these longer-term detentions “something new, different and troubling at the northern border.”
Customs officials so far have refused to acknowledge the longer detentions. In a statement to Investigative Post, a spokesperson declined to answer questions about the detentions, citing “agency policy” and “privacy laws.”
When asked by a reporter both in person and over the phone, Customs agents refused to acknowledge that multiple people were detained at those sites.
Advocates say those refusals have made it difficult for family members and attorneys to locate and contact those being held. When a person is held in ICE custody, for example, their name appears in an online database, which tells family members and attorneys how to locate and contact them.
That’s not been the case for the detentions at the bridges, Connor said. She described those detained as “disappearing.”
“Especially as I started hearing about this and did not have a way to make contact with people … I felt like people were disappearing,” Connor said. “And it’s a scary feeling.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomCustoms officials wouldn’t say why people are being detained at the bridges. They wouldn’t say if the detainees have been charged with any offenses or crimes. In the statement, the CBP spokesperson said the agency does not release information on those detained unless they are charged with a crime. He said further the agency does not release information on those determined to be “illegal aliens.”
In at least one case, a family attempted to enter Canada but was turned back. Upon re-crossing the bridge, U.S. officials detained them.
In another case, an asylum seeker traveled to Buffalo to attend an immigration court hearing as part of his case. Afterwards, and similar to the Detroit family, he made a wrong turn and crossed the Peace Bridge. Upon turning around, he was detained. The man was later transferred to the ICE detention center in Batavia, Connor said.
Ron Rienas, CEO of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Peace Bridge Authority, confirmed detentions had occurred at the Peace Bridge but said he did not know how many people were being held or for how long. CBP rents space at the four Western New York crossings into Canada — at the Peace, Rainbow, Lewiston-Queenston and Whirlpool bridges — from the Peace Bridge Authority or the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission.
“There may be instances due to lack of inland space where people are being held longer at the port than they normally would have been,” Rienas said.
Rienas said the space his agency leases to the federal government includes cells.
Tony Masiello, the former Buffalo mayor who now serves on the Peace Bridge Authority’s board, said he was aware of one family with young children detained at the border. He called their detention “disturbing.”
“I heard about that and I find that really disturbing,” he said. “We have to take these situations as individual cases and not every person needs to be detained, obviously. And I think there’s circumstances where people should not be detained.”
In a statement, Dr. Myron Glick, CEO of Jericho Road Community Health Center, decried the lack of transparency around the new detention practice.
“We urge CBP to immediately clarify its policies, ensure humane treatment for all detainees, and provide full transparency regarding who is being held and why,” he said. “The U.S. must uphold its legal and moral obligations to protect human rights, not undermine them through punitive and opaque practices.”
Glick called on authorities to “conduct a full and transparent investigation.”
The CBP spokesperson said those in the agency’s custody are “afforded opportunities for legal counsel, sanitary means, and all health-related arrangements.”
Connor said connecting detainees to lawyers has proven difficult.
“There’s an element of randomness, and you could say chaos, in how this is being applied,” she said.
