A Wayne County farmworker who made headlines earlier this year in her fight to avoid deportation received notice Monday evening to report to ICE.
Dolores Bustamante is due at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Wednesday morning in Buffalo.
Her case has focused attention on the plight of year-round farmworkers and the removal of longtime undocumented residents. She is a citizen of Mexico who fled gender-based violence in 2003 and made her home working on apple farms in upstate New York.
The 54-year-old grandmother and workers' rights advocate has been under a final removal order since 2018. But immigration authorities took no action until this spring.
Bustamante was detained back in April when she went for a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Buffalo. But a federal judge ordered her release a month later, finding that immigration officials had not provided her with proper notice.
The judge ordered that the government must specify a reason to revoke her release and provide her written notice prior to detaining her again. And that she be given an informal interview, if detained, allowing her to respond to the reason stated in the notification.
She remains under a final removal order, “and will be removed accordingly,” the government’s lawyer had told the court. In her order, U.S. District Judge Meredith Vacca wrote: “To be clear, the Court's decision is not enjoining the government from lawfully executing the removal order against (Bustamante). The Court is simply saying that the government may only execute the removal order in accordance with the law.”
Bustamante received two weeks notice for the check-in back in April, compared to 36 hours for the check-in Wednesday. In the process of the spring detention, she lost her job and has not been able to work since being released, advocates said.
Asked about the intent and possible outcome of the check-in, an ICE spokesperson responded via email: "For operational security purposes, ICE does not disclose ongoing or future operations, or law enforcement plans, tactics, or strategies utilized during such operations.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
