A Chicago day laborer arrested by immigration officials as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” campaign filed a petition in federal court Sunday asking a judge to bar his deportation and release him on bond.
Willian Alberto Giménez González, who came to Chicago from Venezuela in 2023, was detained Friday when he went to a barber shop in the Little Village neighborhood, according to the petition filed in U.S. District Court.
He’s currently being housed at the Department of Homeland Security’s processing center in west suburban Broadview, the petition stated.
Giménez González’s lawyer, Kevin Herrera said Saturday he believes the arrest was related to his client’s participation in a 2024 lawsuit against Home Depot, Inc. and the city of Chicago that contends security personnel profiled and struck Giménez González while he was outside a store seeking day work.
That lawsuit is pending at the same Dirksen U.S. Courthouse where Giménez González filed his petition Sunday.
Federal authorities said in a statement Saturday that Giménez González was in the country illegally and had been ordered deported by an immigration judge last year after he failed to show up to court.
“There is nothing unjust about enforcing the law and ensuring this illegal alien adheres to the laws of the United States,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a written statement. “ICE arrested Willian Alberto Giménez González for being in the country illegally.”
Giménez González petition stated he was “absent from an immigration hearing” in Memphis in April 2024 “due to extraordinary circumstances,” and was ordered removed from the country “in absentia.”
He’s since appealed the ruling and his next hearing is set for July 2026 in Chicago, according to the petition.
In addition to a request barring deportation, the petition also asked a federal judge to prohibit Giménez González removal to a different processing location outside Illinois. Federal officials have three days to respond.
Giménez González’s plight comes nearly a week after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a Chicago-based immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” It’s unclear how many people have been arrested in the area, but advocates have said the number of calls to their hotlines has been unusually high. The administration of President Donald Trump contends it has detained the “worst of the worst” in the operation.
At a protest Saturday outside the Broadview facility, Giménez González’s lawyer said “these are trying times for the legal system and the rights it protects.”
“But the community assembled here knows that people hold the powerful to account,” Herrera said. “We will fight for Willian, and we will see to it that he is free to be with us in Chicago and to contribute to the city in all of the ways he has since he arrived. That’s a promise.”
Democratic U.S. Reps. Delia Ramírez and Jesús “Chuy” García also attended the event.
“Willian has to be released if we are a country of freedom and justice,” Ramírez said in Spanish. “Freedom and justice is what we say when we make our commitment to this country. Justice says Willian has to be in the house with (his wife) Mary, today.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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