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A photo of Ofelia Torres and her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, on display in the family’s living room in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\nOfelia Torres has spent almost every day of the past month at Lurie Children\u2019s Hospital, where the 16-year-old Lake View High School student is fighting cancer.<\/p>\n
After a tough few weeks where the disease spread through her body and doctors inserted a drain in her abdomen to relieve fluid, the Torres family worked with her oncologist to arrange a short getaway over the weekend, where she and three of her closest friends could enjoy a Saturday of simple pleasures and normalcy before a scheduled return to the hospital and chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
The girls were getting their nails done as Ofelia\u2019s father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was at work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hours later, he called his wife Sandibell Hidalgo from a number that came up on caller ID as \u201cprison \/ jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey got me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that moment, the Torres family experienced the pain of separation gripping hundreds of immigrant families across Chicago and the suburbs since Donald Trump\u2019s administration last month launched \u201cOperation Midway Blitz,\u201d the president\u2019s aggressive deportation plan.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re fighting cancer and the United States government. Their attorney, Kalman Resnick, filed a petition in federal court to have him freed while Torres\u2019 deportation case proceeds.<\/p>\n
His family needs him, they say.<\/p>\n
A photo of Ofelia Torres and her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, on display in the family’s living room in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
Ruben Torres and Sandibell Hidalgo are parents of not only Ofelia, but also a 4-year-old son, Nathan. The father, a 40-year-old painter and home renovator, is the primary breadwinner in a household with carefully balanced child care responsibilities in their Portage Park bungalow. The mother often sleeps at the hospital while he takes care of their preschooler.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will take Nathan to school every morning and make sure he leaves from work in time to pick him up and then comes home, gives him dinner and takes him to see us,\u201d Hidalgo said in an interview at her home. \u201cEvery day, he was doing the same thing. I\u2019m like, how am I going to be able to do this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Resnick said he will try to prevent Torres\u2019 deportation \u201con account of his many years of residence in the U.S., his good moral character, and the exceptional and extremely (unusual) hardships his children will experience if he were removed from the United States,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin accused Maldonado of \u201chabitual driving offenses\u201d and said he backed into a government vehicle while attempting to flee. She called his legal filing \u201cnothing more than a desperate Hail Mary attempt\u201d to keep him in the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, his wife sat in the living room of the family home Monday. Her husband renovated their bungalow basement. Medical instructions from Lurie on how to care for their daughter sat on a table nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came because this is a great country, because our lives were gonna be better,\u201d Hidalgo said. \u201cHe belongs with her, and especially in this portion, because we don\u2019t know if she\u2019s gonna make it. She has Stage 4 cancer, she has it all over her bones. The treatment is so aggressive, that it will put her down for days. Her mental and spirit, it\u2019s amazing, but her body is sometimes getting tired. Who knows how long the body\u2019s gonna take it? So he deserves to be with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ofelia told the Tribune her father instilled in her the value of independence. For her 15th birthday, he took her to the Chicago Cultural Center for traditional quinceanera photos but instead of spending money on a big party, he bought her a car.<\/p>\n
Torres carefully searched Facebook Marketplace listings looking for the perfect vehicle. When he saw a candidate, he meticulously inspected the vehicle and took it on test drives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would examine every little corner of this car. Under the car, the wheels, this and that,\u201d Ofelia said. \u201cHe\u2019s like, this car, this car\u2019s not good, this car\u2019s not good. It wasn\u2019t taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, they found a 2006 Ford Mustang with 39,000 miles on it that had been well cared for and largely kept in a garage.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad test drove it. He was like, this car, this is your car,\u201d Ofelia said. \u201cOn my birthday, the day of my birthday, he bought me my car.\u201d<\/p>\n
One day, Ofelia drove home with the top down as her dad was sitting on the stairs. He stared at her quietly and intently, she recalled. She asked if there was something on her face and he said no.<\/p>\n
Later, he told her, \u201cthat day that you came home with your car, I felt like I had done it. I made it in life. Everything I had done, everything I worked for, everything I sacrificed, everything I suffered, was worth it because that\u2019s what I wanted to see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing up, he took Ofelia to boxing and karate classes. He would coach her on how to fight. \u201cIt just made me stronger and that was our bonding,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHis number one goal with raising at least me, was making sure that I never had to rely on anyone,\u201d she said. \u201cThat once I moved out of the house, that I grew up, that I knew how to take care of myself. He wanted me to be an independent person.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the family is close-knit and supports one another, Hidalgo said the father has taken his daughter\u2019s health problems hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing he always says, especially when things don\u2019t go right with the treatment or she has to go through a procedure and he sees all the pain that she\u2019s going through. He says, why us? We\u2019re not bad people. We don\u2019t kill, we don\u2019t steal. We\u2019re just hard workers,\u201d Hidalgo said. \u201cWe just came to this country to make our lives better and there\u2019s people out there that do so bad in this world and nothing happens to them. Why us? Why are we going through this? My answer was, like, \u2018God only knows.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The family is well-known and beloved in their pockets of Chicago. Ofelia\u2019s teacher, Valerie Wadycki, described her as a girl who donated nutrition shakes she didn\u2019t like to a food pantry rather than throwing them away.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Ofelia did a research project for Wadycki about the cost of health care that spread her story further.<\/p>\n
Impressed by Ofelia\u2019s interest in the subject, Wadycki introduced her to her friend, state Rep. Laura Faver Dias from Grayslake, who had an hourlong discussion with the teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is smart, funny, inquisitive, engaging. We just talked about state health care policy. We talked about her fears, our shared fears about what happens to Medicaid for her and her family as she is navigating cancer,\u201d Dias recalled in an interview. \u201cThe hoops her mom has had to jump through to make sure they get the best care possible because they\u2019re on Medicaid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dias introduced Torres to the family\u2019s state representative, Will Guzzardi, who was inspired by the girl\u2019s sharp mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis family is going through so much. They\u2019re so strong,\u201d Guzzardi said. \u201cOphelia is so brave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, whose ward includes the high school, noted cancer patients need an ironclad support network.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a father, I find it nearly impossible to put into words how horrific this situation is,\u201d Martin said. \u201cAt a time when Ofelia and her family need their father the most, ICE has torn their family apart.\u201d<\/p>\n