February 3, 2026
Democrat County Lawmaker Joe Tobia of Corning said that there a lot of Steuben County residents who don’t want the county sheriff’s department helping ICE. Tobia stressed this yesterday, during the county’s Public Safety and Corrections Committee meeting. “To me, it was pretty obvious: the people of Steuben County do not want any agreement with ICE,” Tobia stated. Tobia was referring to the Monday, January 26 Public Safety and Corrections meeting, when dozens of residents, reportedly mostly from Corning, spoke during public comment, objecting to ICE.
Three GOP Steuben County lawmakers disagreed with Tobia on this issue. “The majority of people that were here speaking were from your district (Corning),” said Kelly Fitpatrick. “I would tell you that the majority of people in my district (Bath) are not opposed to our association with ICE.” Then Caton/Hornby/Corning area lawmaker Scott Van Etten spoke up. “I mean, we represent 90,000 people in this county. The fact that 50 of them showed up and 28 of them spoke, does not represent a centilla of the majority,” Van Etten stated. AFter that, Paul Van Caeseele (R, Hornell) indicated that he thought the whole issue was being exaggerated. “This is overblown,” said “Van Caeseele. “We don’t have this issues here. I understand that everybody is upset with what’s going on in the national news, and nobody wants that here. It’s not happening here. It’s a waste of time.”
We contacted Sheriff Jim Allard, who says that ICE has been coming into Steuben County several times a year, since 2003. Allard says, before ICE existed, it was I.N.S. coming up to Steuben County and for the same reason: to arrest illegal immigrants.
Also, Steuben County Public Safety and Corrections Chairman Jeff Horton says, the county legislature will ask the sheriff for more details about the ICE teams coming into Steuben County.
