U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez and other Illinois elected officials and community leaders have called on the Department of Homeland Security to release an immigrant currently in federal custody whose daughter has stage 4 cancer.
Ramirez asked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Ruben Torres Maldonado, a Portage Park resident detained by federal immigration agents Saturday while his 16-year-old daughter Ofelia undergoes cancer treatment.
“They should be together right now, but instead Ruben became another person taken by this fraudulent agency,” Ramirez said.
Torres' attorney is now petitioning federal court for his release. Keeping Torres in custody “doesn't make anyone safer,” Ramirez said.
In a statement Tuesday night, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin accused Maldonado of “routine traffic violations” and said he crashed into a government vehicle while trying to escape. She called his lawsuit “nothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt” to keep him in the country.
Ramirez made her announcement at a news conference Wednesday morning along with other Democrats, including state Sen. Graciela Guzman, state Reps. Will Guzzardi and Laura Faver Diaz, and Chicago aldermen Felix Cardona and Matt Martin.
Torres' wife, Sandybell Hidalgo, also addressed the media remotely from her Portage Park home with her daughter by her side.
“All I ask is that he be released so he can go home. He is a great man,” Hidalgo said. “He's a taxpayer. He's a wonderful father and I need his support.”
According to Hidalgo, the stress caused by the separation is harming their family. According to her, it is difficult for them to raise their four-year-old son Nathan alone and at the same time take care of their daughter.
Ofelia Torres cried for several hours Tuesday, telling her mother she missed her father, Hidalgo said. “My heart physically hurts, and I know this could make my cancer spread faster,” Ophelia told her mother.
Torres' arrest comes amid the Trump administration's Operation Midway Blitz, an aggressive deportation plan that has targeted hundreds of immigrants in the Chicago area since it began in early September.
Speakers at the press conference criticized the operation widely.
“We have a responsibility to every child and every family,” Ramirez said. What we see on these streets and what we see in Chicago is unconscionable.”
