Hudson River Park Trust to Stick With ICE Contract Until June
The Trust believes that they can’t legally back out of a contract that gives parking spots to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) until June, when it expires. The decision has drawn protest from local groups who wanted ICE booted immediately.
Pier 40 /
| 19 Mar 2026 | 12:25
The Hudson River Park Trust says that they will stick with a contract that gives ICE agents parking spots until June, citing a review of contract language. (
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The Trust is otherwise known for overseeing several miles of Manhattan’s Hudson River shoreline. (
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The Hudson River Park Trust has said that it will not break its contract that provides parking spots to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), citing a review of the contract language that they believe prevents them from doing so.
The news was first reported on by the local publication Hellgate, which notes that another round of protestors–organized by Chelsea Neighbors United and the NYC-DSA Immigration Justice Working Group—”crashed” a public meeting of the Trust on March 17.
“As we promised to do, we have reviewed the contract closely and determined that we do not have a legal path to terminate prior to its completion,” a spokesperson for the Trust told Hellgate. “Under the contract, only the federal government has any right to terminate, so the Trust does not have the legal authority to end the contract early.”
The spokesperson added that they knew the announcement would be “disappointing to many of our park neighbors,” and clarified that they would not renew the contract when it expires in June.
As previously reported by Chelsea News, a total of 13 state and local elected officials called on the Trust to cancel the contract immediately when reports first surfaced that the Hudson Park Conservancy had been renting space to ICE vans for years.
The publication used a tool, created by the digital site Sludge, that pinpoints the number of ICE contracts nationwide; of the dozen firms with such contracts in Manhattan, the Trust was the only publicly visible one. The contract, which began in 2021, provided $170,000 to the Trust in exchange for the parking spots. It’s officially up on June 30 of this year.
One of these 13 politicians, then-State Senator Brad Hoylmal-Sigal (now the Manhattan Borough President), called for the Hudson River Trust to look into backing out of the contract before June. “The city and state who control the Hudson River Park Trust is providing space for dozens of [ICE] vehicles to park at Pier 40. This is publicly owned space that should be subject to New York City’s sanctuary policies which prevent cooperation with ICE,” he wrote in a Jan 21 X.com post.
Hoylman-Sigal also sent a letter to the trust that called for them to break the contract “immediately.”
After the Trust reiterated this week that they wouldn’t be backing out of the contract until June, Hoylman-Sigal told Hell Gate that he believed the Trust was concerned about “being held in breach and incurring both legal and other costs in the form of damages.”
“My position remains the same,” he added. “It’s worth tearing up the contract and walking away as a matter of principle.”
Some of the protestors at the Trust’s March 16 advisory meeting appeared to share the same sentiment.
“You say, ‘Oh, our attorney is looking at the contract, we can’t do anything, we’re so weak.’ But this is our City’s land, this is our state’s land, and you absolutely have the power, if you want to exercise it, to kick ICE off of Pier 40,” Chelsea Neighbors United organizer Jay W. Walker said. You simply do it, and let the legalities fall where they may.”