{"id":324414,"date":"2025-10-22T17:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324414\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T17:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:49:10","slug":"immigration-advocates-plead-for-ice-to-release-chicago-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324414\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration advocates plead for ICE to release Chicago father"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be together right now but instead Ruben became another person taken by this rogue agency,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n

An attorney for Torres is currently petitioning in federal court for his release. Holding Torres in custody is \u201cnot making anyone safer,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n

In a statement Tuesday night, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary 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

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.<\/p>\n

\"OfeliaOfelia Torres, 16, left, and her mother, Sandibell Hidalgo, 40, at their home on Oct. 20, 2025, in Chicago. Torres’ father and Hidalgo’s husband, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers over the weekend. Torres was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma cancer in Dec. 2024. (Armando L. Sanchez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Torres\u2019 wife, Sandibell Hidalgo, also addressed the news media remotely from their home in Portage Park, with their daughter by her side.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I\u2019m asking for is to release him so he can come home. He\u2019s a great man,\u201d Hidalgo said. \u201cHe\u2019s a taxpayer. He\u2019s a wonderful dad and I need his support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

ICE spared him from deportation to Venezuela. He donated a kidney to save his ailing brother in the Chicago area.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ofelia Torres cried for hours on Tuesday, telling her mom she missed her father, Hidalgo said. \u201cMy heart is aching physically and I know my cancer may be spreading faster due to this,\u201d Ofelia told her mother.<\/p>\n

Torres\u2019 arrest comes amid the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cOperation Midway Blitz,\u201d an aggressive deportation plan that has swept up hundreds of immigrants in the Chicago area since it began in early September.<\/p>\n

The speakers at the news conference broadly criticized the operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a responsibility to every child and every family,\u201d Ramirez said.\u201d What we are seeing in these streets and what we are seeing in Chicago is unconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez and other Illinois elected officials and community leaders called on the Department of Homeland…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":324415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[235,960,66270,5410,5386,1818,8618,409,161852,14538,161851,277,2065],"class_list":{"0":"post-324414","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-detained","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-immigrant","15":"tag-immigration","16":"tag-ofelia","17":"tag-portage-park","18":"tag-ruben-torres-madlonado","19":"tag-trump","20":"tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115419085006311951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}