UB’s Human Rights Center releases ‘Ending Complicity’ report on immigration

A report prepared by researchers in the School of Law’s Buffalo Human Rights Center found “serious violations” of the rights of Western New York residents as a result of cooperation by local and state authorities with federal immigration enforcement agencies.

The report, “Ending Complicity: The Harms of State and Local Collusion with Federal Immigration Enforcement in Western New York,” details how cooperation — even when inadvertent or informal — in immigration enforcement by local and state agencies, such as police departments, or the absence of adequate precautions taken by staff at hospitals and schools, impacts the “rights of individuals living in the region, non-citizen and citizen alike.”

“The human rights in question are many, spanning rights to due process and equal protection; family life and privacy; the rights of access to health, employment and education; and the rights to seek asylum and to resettle and integrate as refugees,” the report states.

Released in December 2025, the report, which does not represent an official stance of the law school or university, concludes this cooperation is “illicit” and a form of “collusion in an unlawful system of governmental power that ought to end.”

Ultimately, the report recommends New York State officials stop such practices and calls on state legislators to pass the New York for All Act, which includes prohibitions on using police officers to enforce immigration laws and on state employees inquiring into immigration status or disclosing personal information to immigration agencies.

“We ask that Western New York law enforcement stop holding or transferring individuals to federal custody for immigration purposes without judicial warrants and that all local authorities train staff to work with the rights and safety of immigrants in mind,” says Paul Linden-Retek, associate professor and co-director the Buffalo Human Rights Center and the UB Clinical Legal Education program’s Human Rights Practicum, under whose guidance the report was prepared.

UB law students conducted research from late 2024 to late 2025, stressing their “stake in the health and morals of our community” and their “duty to support the preservation of the rule of law,” the report says.

“Ending Complicity” has been well-received in the community, Linden-Retek says. Staff working on Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan’s recent executive order prohibiting city personnel from cooperating with federal immigration actions used the report in their research, and city officials invited the student authors to its announcement. Cheektowaga residents voicing concerns about collusive practices also referenced the report and drew attention to its findings, according to Linden-Retek. And students presented their work before the Bar Association of Erie County, appealing to the profession they hope one day to join.

The report, which applies principles of international human rights law, emphasizes that state and local agencies have obligations to respect, protect and fulfill human rights for all New York residents.

“The harms from collusion destabilize communities and betray the shared commitments made by New Yorkers to promote human rights equally, regardless of immigration status,” the report states. “When public institutions systematically deny rights to disfavored groups, they erode the foundations of democracy itself. Equality under the law is not a benefit of democracy but its essential feature.”

The report chronicles stories of people in Western New York who have suffered under collusive practices. Drawing on local investigative reporting and dozens of interviews with individuals, attorneys, advocates and public officials, the report details experiences of domestic violence survivors afraid to call the police; a young man suffering from sickle cell anemia arrested for petit larceny and transferred by local police to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol custody; children met at school bus stops by federal agents; dairy workers afraid to resist wage theft and unsafe workplaces; and resettled refugees retraumatized by racial profiling.

“As you begin to use local and state institutions to enforce federal immigration law,” says Linden-Retek, “this changes the character for those local institutions. It means the police now are suspicious — in any encounter — of whether a person truly belongs here, even if this has little to do with criminality or keeping a community safe. The idea that police would capably enforce federal immigration laws is fanciful and distracting. There is compelling evidence it undermines the trust communities have in law enforcement.

“Buffalo prides itself on being the City of Good Neighbors. But when hospitals fail to make clear to their patients they will not cooperate with immigration agencies, people forgo medical care, worried information might be shared with ICE [United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Whether hospital staff or police working in hospitals, there is a responsibility to credibly allay the fear a hospital visit might lead to arrest and deportation.”

A similar concern applies to schools and “a child’s right to education,” Linden-Retek says.

“Education is a significant part of the report, with concerns heightened after the Trump administration’s reversal of the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘sensitive areas’ policy, by which the agency had refrained from conducting immigration enforcement in schools. Without careful protocols implemented in response, parents fear sending their children to school, and children in school are fearful something they say or the accent in which they say it might draw attention to their immigration status or their parents. Under such circumstances, learning, growing, making friends become difficult, often impossible.”

Drafting the report taught UB students practical skills they can apply as attorneys and advocates and to think creatively to promote structural change, Linden-Retek says. It also demonstrates students’ commitment to law’s promise of justice, he adds.

“The stories we share testify to a federal immigration policy that fails those in need, itself becoming a source of persecution and cruelty,” he says. “But they are stories that would never have occurred in the way they did were it not for involvement or neglect of state and local authorities. We all bear responsibility for that.”