{"id":788954,"date":"2026-05-11T14:58:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788954\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:58:29","slug":"chicago-teen-who-pushed-for-parents-release-from-ice-custody-dies-of-cancer-us-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788954\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago teen who pushed for parents\u2019 release from ICE custody dies of cancer | US immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chicago-born teen who advocated for his parents\u2019 release from US immigration<\/a> authorities\u2019 custody while fighting terminal cancer has died shortly after reuniting with them in Mexico, his family has told media outlets.<\/p>\n

The parents of 18-year-old Kevin Gonz\u00e1lez had been taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE<\/a>) custody in Arizona in mid-April after they crossed the US border from Mexico without permission in an attempt to see him in Chicago as his health waned. Gonz\u00e1lez since then traveled to be with relatives in Mexico, and in recent days he had publicly pleaded for them to be released from ICE custody so they could be with him as he battled metastatic stage four colon cancer.<\/p>\n

A federal judge ordered the release of Isidro Gonz\u00e1lez Avil\u00e9s, 48, and Norma Anabel Ram\u00edrez Amaya, 43, on Thursday, as the Spanish-language US news network Telemundo reported<\/a>. And, as Telemundo also noted<\/a>, they had been able to be back with Kevin at his maternal grandmother\u2019s house in Durango, Mexico, on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Kevin\u2019s brother, Jovany Ram\u00edrez, and an aunt of his then reportedly told the network that he had died late Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the network at that house during Kevin\u2019s final hours, Gonz\u00e1lez Avil\u00e9s described kneeling at his son\u2019s feet, asking for forgiveness if he had ever let him down in anything and telling him he loved him very much.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he deserved the suffering he had,\u201d a weeping Gonz\u00e1lez Avil\u00e9s said on video.<\/p>\n

Democratic US congressman Jes\u00fas \u201cChuy\u201d Garc\u00eda of Chicago<\/a> issued a statement Sunday saying the Gonzalezes \u201cshould have had more time together\u201d.<\/p>\n

The statement from Garc\u00eda, who was born in Durango himself before his family immigrated to the US, added<\/a> that he would \u201chonor Kevin and his family by vowing to continue fighting for a humane immigration system that treats everyone with dignity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kevin, a US citizen who was born in Chicago but raised in Mexico<\/a>, received his terminal diagnosis in January. He was visiting relatives in Chicago and had fallen ill at the time of his diagnosis, and he began undergoing treatment there.<\/p>\n

After Kevin stopped responding to medical treatment, Gonz\u00e1lez Avil\u00e9s and Ram\u00edrez Amaya sought permission to travel to the US to see their son. But the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE\u2019s parent agency, said the pair were denied due to \u201cprevious unlawful presence and entries into the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez Avil\u00e9s and Ram\u00edrez Amaya then tried to enter the US without permission, but ICE arrested the two near Douglas, Arizona, on 14 April and sent them to a detention center.<\/p>\n

ICE made those arrests while at the forefront of a mass immigration detention and deportation campaign that the US embarked on after the start of Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s second presidency in early 2025.<\/p>\n

A document from a doctor who was treating Kevin at the University of Chicago medical center recounted how Kevin ultimately decided to return to Mexico to be with family. That 28 April document, reported on by Telemundo, requested a \u201ccompassionate release\u201d for at least Ram\u00edrez Amaya so that she could be with Kevin, who was \u201cno expected to survive long\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kevin later appeared in a Telemundo story published online<\/a> on 6 May, asking that \u201ceverything possible be done\u201d for his parents to be released and for him to spend \u201cthe last days with them\u201d.<\/p>\n

One day later, a US district judge in Tucson, Arizona, ordered Kevin\u2019s parents to be released from custody and for their deportations to be expedited. They were then deported to Mexico on Friday and got to see Kevin on Saturday, one day before his death.<\/p>\n

Ram\u00edrez Amaya, once in Mexico, told Telemundo it was grueling for her to see her son\u2019s deteriorated condition. \u201cI never imagined seeing him like this \u2013 no,\u201d she remarked while weeping. \u201cIt\u2019s very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspects of Kevin\u2019s case called to mind that of Ofelia Torres, a 16-year-old Chicago girl who died<\/a> in February from cancer after pushing for her father\u2019s release from ICE custody.<\/p>\n

Cases such as hers and Kevin\u2019s have highlighted the human effects of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chicago-born teen who advocated for his parents\u2019 release from US immigration authorities\u2019 custody while fighting terminal cancer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-788954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116556536814305036","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788954","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=788954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}