Categories for In-Depth

Oct 22

2025

Migrant family flees after pursuit by ICE

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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 2 days ago

Oct 16

2025

The Central Terminal’s costly redevelopment plan

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The nonprofit charged with redeveloping Buffalo’s landmark New York Central Terminal, situated in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, has proposed converting two buildings on the sprawling campus into apartments that could cost as much as $900,000 per unit to build. Critics tell Investigative Post the cost is astronomical and a poor use of taxpayer dollars.  In June, the developer and nonprofit announced plans to spend $80 million to develop 90 to 110 affordable apartments, plus potential commercial space, in a former mail sorting and storage facility adjacent to the Central Terminal’s iconic tower and a city-owned structure that housed[...]

Posted 1 week ago

Oct 3

2025

Overcrowding rampant at ICE facility in Batavia

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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 3 weeks ago

Sep 30

2025

Buffalo’s Housing Court: Fewer fines, lax collections

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The City of Buffalo over the past six years has failed to collect $6.5 million in Housing Court fines that could help to address the city’s budget deficits.  Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have issued $7,024,200 in fines, according to data Investigative Post obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration. The city has collected $481,500, or 8.5 percent of the fines issued. And between 2017 and 2019, the city failed to collect another $6.8 million in Housing Court fines, according to city records. That’s more than $13 million the city has left on the table over[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Sep 16

2025

Shaky math involving Buffalo’s budget balancer

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The 52-year-old Charles R. Turner Ramp across from Buffalo City Hall. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The City of Buffalo’s current budget and its four-year financial plan rely on $42 million from the anticipated sale of four downtown parking ramps to a newly formed public authority.  But how Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s administration came up with that number, and whether it accurately reflects the price the ramps will fetch, is a mystery. City officials have refused to share documents showing how they determined what the ramps are worth. The board treasurer of the organization that manages the ramps now — and[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 10

2025

Jemal late in paying millions in bills

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Contractors have filed nearly $3.7 million in liens for unpaid bills against Doug Jemal’s projects in Western New York over the past year and a half. It’s another indicator that high interest rates and the diminished market for office and retail space have put the screws to the developer’s business.  Jemal called those conditions “a pandemic of real estate” that have made cash flow tight for his company and real-estate developers across the country.  “There’s cash flow issues, no doubt,” he told Investigative Post. “But we’re taking care of this. We pay our bills.” The mechanics liens — a legal[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 9

2025

Police who drink, drive and avoid charges

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Ronald W. Wilson, an investigator with the New York State Police, admitted to drinking and driving this vehicle in 2021 but received only a traffic ticket. Photo courtesy of the Orchard Park Police Department. This story is co-published with the New York Times and New York Focus. An Orchard Park police officer found the man on the shoulder of Southwestern Boulevard, standing near his crumpled black BMW, arguing with his girlfriend. It was 11 p.m. on a Saturday in 2021. The BMW had slammed into a Jeep, smashing its left taillight. White high heels were toppled on their sides on[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 4

2025

Process for police shooting range misses the mark

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Vacant community center sports mural of civil right champion John Lewis. City of Buffalo officials failed to follow state law in their rush to turn a former East Side community center into a shooting range and training facility for police. In July, the city failed to include a required environmental evaluation in a zoning change application for the proposed $5 million facility, in violation of state law.  City officials twice marked the application complete when it wasn’t, then moved it through the planning board, a public hearing, and the Common Council anyway. The missing environmental assessment was only made public[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post