A decision on whether to release detained Wayne County farmworker Dolores Bustamante could come as soon as Wednesday.
Bustamante is undocumented and was detained last month during her scheduled check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Buffalo.
The 54-year-old mother and grandmother has been living and working in the United States since 2003, most of that time in western New York. She was in court Tuesday in downtown Rochester for an evidentiary hearing before U.S. District Judge Meredith Vacca. The hearing focused on whether ICE detained Bustamante without the required notice and hearing.
“She had a right to be told there is a day and a time, and after that you will have to say goodbye,” argued Rhidaya Trivedi, one of three attorneys representing Bustamante. “There is nothing other than release that can remedy that.”
“You don’t get notice of something you are not entitled to, which is liberty in this country after being ordered removed,” countered Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Kahlil.
Bustamante has been under a final order of removal since 2023, but had been allowed to remain in the country on supervised release. An order releasing her from detention, though, might only afford her what historically has been referred to as an “orderly departure” — some period of time, as Trivedi referenced, in which to prepare.
On Tuesday, Bustamante entered a packed courtroom accompanied by two guards. Nearly 50 family members, friends and supporters filled the gallery. Bustamante choked up and began dabbing her eyes and nose with a tissue.
Her hair was braided to either side, and she wore a blue top and pants with "Alleghany County Jail" printed in white letters on the back.
“Even though this is my mother’s case, she was not on trial here,” said her youngest daughter Miriam DeBadts, speaking to supporters after the nearly three-hour hearing. “She was not on trial for being any kind of criminal. The hearing today was about how we choose to treat people that never committed any crimes; that are pillars of the community who give selflessly.
“And unfortunately,” DeBadts continued, “from what we’ve heard, and what we heard today and what we hear on the news, we are choosing to treat them as less than human."
Deportation would be “permanent exile,” Trivedi said, from a life Bustamante has built to a place she has not seen for more than two decades. Bustamante left Mexico in 2003, fleeing domestic violence. It was the apple farms that brought her to Wayne County.
She went to her check-in last month expecting she could be detained and addressed supporters and the media. Then, smiling and waving, she went inside.
The first agent to speak to her that day remarked, “You’re famous,” Bustamante testified Tuesday, and later asked who had called the press. It was the first time reporters had attended one of Bustamante’s check-ins, her lawyers said.
Kahlil disputed there was any connection between Bustamante’s advocacy or press coverage and the decision to detain her. But her legal team pointed to the lack of documentation and pressed the question of who decided she would be detained, and when. Kahlil said he did not know and had no record to that effect. But he argued the prior removal order was Bustamante’s de facto notice. Vacca was skeptical and drilled down on procedural questions of due process.
The courtroom back-and-forth highlighted gaps in immigration law and pointed to ICE practices that seemingly have strayed from legal requirements.
“Their argument is she has no rights,” Trivedi said. “There is simply no way that passes constitutional muster."
Bustamante spent three hours in the ICE office, but she said she was never told the reason for revoking her release. When Vacca asked Kahlil if that was true, he responded, “I don’t know, Judge.”
On the witness stand, Bustamante spoke softly, often with her head down, tearing up at times, specifically when describing being shackled and cuffed.
She was taken to Ohio that day, then flown along with others to a detention center in Louisiana the next morning. Kahlil said her removal to Mexico “was happening the next day, essentially.”
Repeatedly, though, both when getting on and off the flight to Louisiana, there was confusion, Bustamante said — as her name was not on the list of people being transported.
“They decided to take her in, and they decided to do it so haphazardly that she wasn’t on the flight manifest to Louisiana,” Trivedi said.
When the hearing ended, Bustamante was allowed to visit with family and supporters, but she was not allowed physical contact. When one woman moved in and hugged her, the woman was removed. Bustamante stood to leave.
Again, she smiled and waved.
Includes reporting by executive producer Veronica Volk.
