U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez and other Illinois elected officials and community leaders called on the Department of Homeland Security to release an immigrant currently in federal custody whose daughter is sick with Stage 4 cancer.
Ramirez asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Ruben Torres Maldonado, a Portage Park man detained by federal immigration agents Saturday while his 16-year-old daughter, Ofelia, is undergoing cancer treatment.
“They should be together right now but instead Ruben became another person taken by this rogue agency,” Ramirez said.
An attorney for Torres is currently petitioning in federal court for his release. Holding Torres in custody is “not making anyone safer,” Ramirez said.
In a statement Tuesday night, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused Maldonado of “habitual driving offenses” and said he backed into a government vehicle while attempting to flee. She called his legal filing “nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt” to keep him in the country.
Ramirez made her remarks at a news conference Wednesday morning alongside other Democrats, including state Sen. Graciela Guzman, state Reps. Will Guzzardi and Laura Faver Dias, and Chicago Aldermen Felix Cardona and Matt Martin.
Torres’ wife, Sandibell Hidalgo, also addressed the news media remotely from their home in Portage Park, with their daughter by her side.
“All I’m asking for is to release him so he can come home. He’s a great man,” Hidalgo said. “He’s a taxpayer. He’s a wonderful dad and I need his support.”
The strain of the separation is hurting their family, Hidalgo said. It is hard to raise their 4-year-old son, Nathan, and care for their daughter at the same time alone, she said.
Ofelia Torres cried for hours on Tuesday, telling her mom she missed her father, Hidalgo said. “My heart is aching physically and I know my cancer may be spreading faster due to this,” Ofelia told her mother.
Torres’ arrest comes amid the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” an aggressive deportation plan that has swept up hundreds of immigrants in the Chicago area since it began in early September.
The speakers at the news conference broadly criticized the operation.
“We have a responsibility to every child and every family,” Ramirez said.” What we are seeing in these streets and what we are seeing in Chicago is unconscionable.”
