She followed the rules. She was still detained.
Dolores Bustamante walked into her appointment Wednesday morning with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Wednesday morning knowing there was a good chance she wouldn’t come back to her family.
She went to the ICE office at 250 Delaware Ave. against the advice of her attorney, Jose Perez, who wanted to find a legal route to forestall her arrest.
“I will go to the check-in because I have always done things the right way, and I still want to do things the right way,” Bustamante explained in a blog post published the day before. “I don’t want to hide.”
Bustamante, 54, has lived in the United States since 2003, when she fled domestic violence in Mexico and sought asylum. She has spent years fighting deportation while working on apple farms in Wayne County. Since then she’s become well-known for her work organizing for the rights of farmworkers and immigrant families.
Carly Fox, a close friend of Bustamante, described Bustamante as an unusually outspoken figure in farmworker communities, where many immigrants are reluctant to draw public attention to themselves.
“Meeting someone like Dolores is pretty outstanding,” Fox said. “It’s really scary to speak up when it’s not your country.”
Bustamante’s community held a steady presence all morning after she went inside 250 Delaware Ave., holding signs of support and offering rallying speeches among the group. Family members checked their phones and waited. Across the street at Spot Coffee, Bustamante’s daughter, Alma Gonzalez, alternated checking for updates from Bustamante and adding butterflies to a poster with Bustamante’s picture pasted in. Gonzalez’s children, Bustamante’s grandchildren Axmir, 17, and Ariana Sanchez, 16, gazed out the cafe window at the little group holding space outside the building that houses ICE. Carly Fox, a friend of the family, sat with Gonzalez and her children, refreshing a text thread with Bustamante.
At 12:12, a message from Bustamante in Spanish came, appearing to cut off in mid-sentence.
“I can’t call,” Fox read from her phone, as she translated into English. “I’m locked up. They have me locked up here. I can't use …” (1/2)
Last week, advocates in piggy ears gathered across the street from the former Tonawanda Coke site, also the proposed site of an AI data center project, kicking off NYPIRG’s ‘energy hog’ bus tour, which is traveling New York to boost awareness of data center energy consumption and call for data center regulation. Attendees called on state leadership and Governor Kathy Hochul to affirm New York’s landmark climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, after Hochul proposed changes to weaken the law in late March.
“There’s ways of making these data centers work within communities (…) but that’s not happening because we have no regulation.” said Bridge Rauch of Clean Air Coalition of WNY (slide 2). “(…)So what we are calling for in the short term is we want to see a statewide moratorium.”
The data center proposed at the former Tonawanda Coke site (slide 8) is estimated to need 300 megawatts of electricity; this is roughly the amount used by 230,000 to 260,000 homes, or more than the towns of Amherst, Tonawanda and Clarence combined.
“(…) in Buffalo, there are too many families that are already choosing between heat, groceries, and rent. That is not development. That is oppression with a beautifully polished name. We are living in a time when too many powers speak the language of affordability while delivering the reality of extraction,” said Dr. Majadi Baruti, a climate justice organizer with PUSH Buffalo (slide 6).
Scenes inside the vacant AM&A’s building in downtown Buffalo, left to rot for roughly three decades and continuing to decay as squabbling investors bicker over its future. Read what it might take to restore the space from Jonathan Epstein on @thebuffalonews
still blown away by the sheer scope of talent and hard work that went into the Black Carpet III! huge congratulations to all involved, & thank you for having me around in the roaming photo squad ✨
(see more from @buffalofashionrunway@sheasbflo on @thebuffalonews !)
Theresa McCall-Jenkins, a family support specialist, has been serving Buffalo's mothers and young children since 1999 through her work with Buffalo Prenatal Perinatal Network.
BPPN's Healthy Families Buffalo, a home visiting program that is part of the Healthy Families New York system, deputizes qualified specialists like McCall-Jenkins to offer parents free information, guidance, and support from pregnancy into early childhood. In 2024, the program served 417 families and over 500 children, with more than 4,800 visits completed.
Through BPPN's home visiting program, McCall-Jenkins conducts weekly home visits with a caseload of 15 families at a time, working hard to boost maternal and infant health and improve quality of life for families. She works with moms of all ages and backgrounds, some who have a village, some who don't.
As a former teen mom, a grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of seven, McCall-Jenkins is generous with her years of wisdom, diligently mentoring her clients, but also her colleagues at BPPN, many of whom refer to her warmly as "Miss Theresa," or even "Grandma."
Now at age 76, McCall-Jenkins says she considered retirement at least four times, and went through with it once about three years ago. But she was back working with families part-time within months, and full-time not long after that.
It was a joy following Theresa in her work and witnessing her warm smile, tough love, and frank advice in action, helping people learn to be parents and looking out for the well being of little ones. Jon Harris (/in/jon-harris-19bab858/) knocked this article out of the park, and I loved making these photographs.
Read Jon’s story on @thebuffalonews . To borrow a Theresa phrase, it’ll do your heart good.
Barb Gauchat’s diner has been a community hub in WNY for the past 11 years. But it is soon to close after her rent went up 600%.
See more images of Western New York’s Soup Lady on @thebuffalonews
#WNY #buffalo #gentrification #momandpopshop #thirdspace
Between two and three hundred demonstrators protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 250 Delaware Avenue, the building which houses local ICE operations, in downtown Buffalo, Jan. 8, 2026. The peaceful action comes one day after Renee Good, 37, an American citizen and mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis during a continuing operation of federal immigration officers in Minnesota. Several protesters carried signs decrying Uniland Development Co., which owns the building at 250 Delaware and leases space there to ICE. For @thebuffalonews
#ice #iceprotest #buffalo #buffalony
A look back at 2025 in stills. This year, my camera passport and the kindness of strangers got me into a helicopter over Niagara Falls and a boat in the Erie Canal, inside an operating room, to fashion shows, a movie premiere, a Michelin-recognized restaurant, celebrations of the Lunar New Year, Chaand Raat, and Dyngus Day, inside the homes of incredible people, and so much more across WNY. It’s not been an easy year for me, or for most of us, but beauty always abounds in our humanity, and that current keeps me moving. Thanks to all who let me into their lives; I’m endlessly grateful. Wishing everyone peace and joy as we close the year. May you find your light.
(See more pictures from 2025 from my colleagues and me on ! Captions in comments)
