Articles for J. Dale Shoemaker

Oct 30

2025

U.S. stepping up surveillance of travelers at border using facial recognition

Cars approaching customs at the Peace Bridge. The Department of Homeland Security quietly announced this week plans to step up the surveillance of travelers entering and leaving the United States by foot, car, airplane or boat. Plans include implementing a facial recognition system in the coming months for those entering the country. Participation is mandatory for non-citizens. U.S. citizens may opt out, but the Department of Homeland Security warns doing so could cause delays or other disruptions to a person’s travel. The system has been tested at select border crossings since 2018, including the Peace Bridge. Plans include later expanding[...]

Posted 22 hours ago

Oct 22

2025

Migrant family flees after pursuit by ICE

Anderson Contreras-Hernandez leaves Cheektowaga Town Court. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. After months of uncertainty — and detention for a father and son — a family of asylum seekers that briefly called Buffalo home has resettled in their native Venezuela. The Contreras-Hernandez family spent just 18 months as U.S. residents before finding themselves caught in the maw of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants. Over the summer, as arrests and detentions spiked across Western New York, both 20-year-old Anderson Contreras-Hernandez and his father ended up in ICE detention, facing the prospect of deportation. His mother subsequently elected to self-deport with[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Oct 8

2025

OTB hires Byron Brown’s brother-in-law

Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. — headed by president and CEO Byron Brown — has hired the brother-in-law of the former mayor. Michael Lee Austin — brother of Brown’s wife, Michelle Austin Brown — began working last month as a sergeant supervising the security guards at Batavia Downs, the horse track, casino and hotel complex owned by OTB. The position pays $24.33 per hour and is eligible for overtime. Austin disclosed his relationship to Brown in his application for a state gaming license, a copy of which Investigative Post obtained via a Freedom of Information request. The hiring appears to[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Oct 3

2025

Overcrowding rampant at ICE facility in Batavia

J. Dale Shoemaker summarizes the story. The ICE detention center in Batavia is bursting at the seams. Data obtained by Investigative Post shows an average of 727 migrants have been held at the 650-bed facility daily since early June. “We’ve heard reports of people sleeping on the floor of the gymnasium of the facility, given only individual workout mats to sleep on, not even mattresses,” said Aaron Krupp, regional coordinator for Justice for Migrant Families, an advocacy group that works with detainees. In mid-August, the number of people held in the detention center peaked at nearly 800. The count dropped[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Sep 24

2025

Wojtaszek’s wife, a judge, berates OTB employee

Niagara County Judge Caroline Wojtaszek. Photo courtesy of The Niagara-Gazette. Niagara County Judge Caroline Wojtaszek has been accused of “verbally accosting” an employee of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. who was critical of her husband’s tenure when he was head of the agency. The employee, who spoke to Investigative Post on the condition she not be named, was one of four women who wrote a letter to the OTB board saying Henry Wojtaszek’s time as president and CEO was “filled with lawsuits, negative press, nasty and vindictive leaders.” The four women who signed the letter — all longtime employees in[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 23

2025

Resistance mounts to Wojtaszek’s OTB return

Henry Wojtaszek, former OTB president and CEO. Photo by Dale Shoemaker. Henry Wojtaszek’s first meeting as a director of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. isn’t even in the books yet, but his return to the agency he once ran is already facing resistance. The latest salvo is a Sept. 18 letter from Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera to the New York State Gaming Commission, urging that body to withhold a gaming license from Wojtaszek. His tenure at OTB, the lawmakers wrote, was “marred by labor violations, harassment settlements, fiscal mismanagement, and investigations,” meaning Wojtaszek “is,[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 17

2025

Niagara County appoints Wojtaszek to OTB board

Henry Wojtaszek addresses the Niagara County Legislature. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker. Republicans in the Niagara County Legislature made it official on Tuesday, returning former Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. President and CEO Henry Wojtaszek to the organization, this time as a member of its board of directors. In a vote largely along party lines, 10 of the legislature’s Republican lawmakers endorsed Wojtaszek’s appointment as a director representing Niagara County on the OTB board. Wojtaszek replaces Elliott Winter, who resigned last month citing personal reasons. Three of the legislature’s Democratic lawmakers and two Republicans objected to the move, suggesting Wojtaszek[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 17

2025

Inside the human smuggling racket along U.S.-Canadian border

A smuggler waits for a reporter posing as a client in a Toronto parking lot. Photo via IJB. This story is published in partnership with the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, a collaborative investigative newsroom supported by Postmedia that partners with academics, researchers and journalists while training the next generation of investigative reporters. A silver Toyota minivan pulls into a bank parking lot in Toronto’s west end. Two young Punjabi men step out and start looking around for their client, a woman they’ve been communicating with over the previous days through[...]

Posted 1 month ago