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Architectural drawings filed with Brookhaven Town reveal federal immigration authorities have plans to convert IRS office space in Holtsville into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing and detention facility capable of handling potentially hundreds of immigrants a day.
Because Brookhaven is rejecting the application, ruling that a detention facility is not a permitted use in an office-zoned building, the applicant must now seek a zone change or a use variance. Both would require a public hearing.
The plans, drawn by a New Jersey architecture firm, show at least three detainee interview rooms fitted with bolt-down stools, handcuff rings, duress alarm buttons, and bullet-resistant glass, documents reviewed by Greater Long Island show.
A detainee vestibule, handcuff bars, a bond pay area, men’s and women’s showers, an exercise room, and a “alien waiting” room for 172 people are also included.
Probably not the building you’re thinking of
The Holtsville IRS building eyed for the ICE facility is not the sprawling federal complex most Long Islanders may picture.
That larger building — a 557,000-square-foot IRS service center sitting on roughly 75 acres directly across from the YMCA, south of Woodside Avenue — is owned by the federal government and was briefly included on a U.S. General Services Administration list of properties tagged for disposal in March 2025, before the list was quietly taken down.
The building ICE has tapped for the processing and detention center is a smaller one to the north. That property was sold in 2022 for $28.5 million to Gershon Alexander of Northpath Investments. It already serves as home to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that handles legal immigration applications.
The federal government now rents space there — a distinction with major legal implications. Because the federal government doesn’t own the property, Brookhaven Town retains zoning authority over it, giving local officials the power to block — or at minimum slow down — ICE’s plans.
The two buildings are outlined in red in the map below. The smaller building being eyed by ICE for a detention center is to the north, while the larger structure owned by the federal government is to the south.
“If the federal government was to buy this property, the town would have no say,” Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico told Newsday.
Rep. Andrew Garbarino, who represents Holtsville and chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said in the same report there are “currently no plans” for a detention center there.
The Republican congressman from Bayport has not replied to Greater Long Island’s request for comment on the federal detention center plans and the town’s confirmation of them.
Patrick Halpin, former Suffolk County Executive and Democratic congressional candidate challenging Garbarino, called the plans an expansion of “ICE terror” on Long Island and accused his opponent of willful blindness.
“These plans have been in the works for months,” Halpin said. “Andrew Garbarino had to know what ICE was up to. Garbarino supports this dramatic expansion of ICE brutality. He needs to explain how he has allowed these plans to get this far.”
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) has not responded to a request for comment in this report. Additionally, ICE has not replied to a request for comment and information.
Nicholas Esposito and Mike White contributed to this report.
Top: The entrance to the federally leased building at 5000 Corporate Court in Holstville. (Credit:Nicholas Esposito)
