About 150 people gathered on the Village Green in Goshen on Sunday for “Melt ICE in Orange County,” a protest calling on County Executive Steve Neuhaus to end the county’s long-standing contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and cease housing detainees at the Orange County Jail.
The rally followed the recent halt of a proposed ICE detention facility in Chester, a victory organizers referenced repeatedly as evidence that coordinated pressure can work. Now, attention has shifted to what advocates describe as an 18-year relationship between Orange County and ICE—one they argue sustains a broader regional enforcement network.
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman 
Photo by Jonathan Hyman
Organized by a coalition that included Mid-Hudson Valley and Lower Hudson Valley chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, For the Many, NY Dignity Not Detention, Proyecto Faro, Fuerza Newburgh, Rural & Migrant Ministry, Newburgh Resists, Citizen Action of New York, and the Rockland Coalition to End the New Jim Crow, the event was tightly run, with a steady sequence of speakers addressing detention conditions, family separation, and the long tail of trauma associated with incarceration.
“We all want our homes to be safe,” said Shelby Aho, an organizer with For the Many. “And the reality is, the presence of ICE makes our homes dangerous.” Her remarks framed a throughline that ran across the afternoon: that local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement increases the likelihood of raids, arrests, and deportations in surrounding communities.
Speakers also pointed to documented conditions inside the jail. Advocates cited reports of systemic medical failures in immigration detention at the facility, arguing that the issue is not only who is detained, but how.
If the rhetoric was familiar—calls to abolish ICE, demands for local officials to disengage from federal enforcement—the strategy felt more calibrated. The focus remained tightly local. Speaker after speaker returned to the same demand: that Neuhaus cancel the contract. There was little drift into national politics. Notably, President Donald Trump’s name went largely unspoken from the stage, even as a few signs in the crowd referenced him. The message discipline was striking.
That discipline may reflect a broader legislative push. Orange County Legislator Genesis Ramos urged support for the proposed Dignity Not Detention Act, which would ban local ICE contracts statewide. “We have the opportunity to activate protections for immigrants in every county within the state,” Ramos said.
For organizers, the Goshen rally was less an endpoint than a pivot—from stopping a new facility in Chester to dismantling an existing system in Orange County. Whether that momentum can be sustained now becomes the central question.
