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Chicago Tribune
12 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
ICE took her mother. Now, a 6-year-old is left without a guardian or legal path back to reunite in Honduras.
As Gabriela crossed the stage at her kindergarten graduation in Chicago, she scanned the audience, desperately searching for a familiar face. But her mother was nowhere to be found. Still, wearing a pink dress and ballerina flats, Gabriela, 6, smiled and twirled around holding a bouquet on her way home. An older neighbor who sometimes cares for her walked by her side. Just a week earlier, on June 4, her mother, Wendy Sarai Pineda, 39, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside an office in downtown Chicago during what was supposed to be a routine check-in, while Gabriela was at school. The little girl doesn't understand why her mother vanished and had hoped her mother would be at her graduation, said Camerino Gomez, Pineda's fiance. 'I told her that she went to get some paperwork ready so that they can be together in Honduras,' Gomez, 55, said. 'And that I will take her to be with her soon.' But Gomez doesn't know if that's even possible. He has no legal guardianship over Gaby, as he calls her. The girl, who is a Honduran citizen, has an asylum case pending. And with Pineda being held at the Kenton County Detention Center in Kentucky before being deported to Honduras, there's no clear way to secure a power of attorney for Gomez to travel with the girl. ICE, he said, has not been responsive to him or the lawyer for the mother and daughter. 'She is afraid that the state or the government will take (Gaby) away from her,' Gomez said. 'She's afraid she'll never see her ever again.' When parents are detained or deported by immigration authorities, their children — many of them U.S. citizens, others, like Gaby, in the U.S. without legal permission — are often left behind to navigate the fallout alone. Some are placed in the care of relatives, while others may end up in foster care. All face the emotional trauma of sudden separation, sometimes compounded by economic instability and legal uncertainty. Reunification is often blocked by bureaucratic hurdles, Chicago advocates say. Despite life-altering consequences, there is currently no federal protocol to ensure that children are reunited with their deported parents. Their well-being is left to chance, in a system that wasn't built to protect them.'An infrastructure for children left behind when their parents are deported does not exist,' said Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project, an organization that offers legal help for immigrants. 'It makes this heartbreaking situation even harder for families.' Advocates estimate about 20 people, including Pineda, were detained by immigration officers on June 4 following a confrontation involving local officials and ICE agents in the South Loop. According to Gomez, Pineda had received a message to attend an appointment that morning at an office housing the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, an ICE-run alternative to detention that ensures compliance with immigration processes. The mother, who came from Honduras with Gaby in May 2023 to seek asylum, was not aware that she had a prior deportation order from entering the United States without authorization years before. Still, the Biden administration allowed her into the country with her daughter because she did not pose a threat to the country and had no criminal record, her attorney Elisa Drew said. For the last few years, Pineda had been checking in with ICE. That's what she intended to do June 4. 'She wanted to get to the office early so she could come home early,' Gomez said. 'Instead, she wasn't allowed to leave.'Masked federal agents pulled Pineda and more than a dozen others from the ICE office and loaded them into unmarked white vans as relatives watched, many in tears. She is now being held in Kentucky, awaiting deportation. Many of the detained that day were parents who had been complying with check-ins for years, said Antonio Gutierrez, co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations. The parents, he said, are desperate to know how their children are doing. Most have been sleeping on the floor at the detention center because of overcrowding, according to Gladis Yolanda Chavez, another immigrant mother who was detained June 4. There is no clear data on the number of children who have been left behind. Their ages range from newborns to high schoolers. In past administrations, immigrants would be given some time to purchase plane tickets back to their home countries and then escorted to the airport, Drew said. And though that is what Pineda would have wanted to do, she couldn't. 'They were thinking maybe they could leave as a family unit. I thought they would be safer,' Drew said. At home, Gaby keeps asking where her mother went.'She told me that when she sees her mom's clothes, she remembers her and gets more sad,' Gomez said. In recent weeks, immigration attorneys have told the Tribune that ICE has ramped up the visibility of enforcement across Chicago and other sanctuary cities, targeting people at court hearings and during check-ins.'To have a parent taken away suddenly like that … can have lifelong implications for their development and for their socialization — night terrors, screaming, crying uncontrollably,' said Caitlin Patler, an associate professor of public policy at the University of California at who met Gaby after getting engaged to her mother in November, said he would like to take Gaby back to Honduras, but ICE has the child's passport and the power of attorney. After more than two weeks, ICE has been unresponsive, Drew said. Though Gomez has tried to reach out to the Honduran Consulate in Chicago and other organizations, he has gotten little to no response. 'What do I do if Gaby gets sick, if she needs something that requires her parents to be here?' he said. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which intervenes only in cases of abuse or neglect, said in a statement that it works with families regardless of immigration status. If a child is found to be neglected and a parent is detained or deported, the agency aims to place them with relatives and reunify them with their parents, sometimes with the help of foreign consulates. The Mexican Consulate visits each detainee at the immigration processing center in Broadview before they are transferred to a detention center to provide a power of attorney or custody letter if they have a child in the country. Other countries, however, do not have that type of structure. Due to the political turmoil, Venezuela, for example, does not have a consulate in the United from the Resurrection Project, urges families to create an emergency family plan that includes discussing with a loved one who can care for the children if the caregiver is detained, and having the necessary documents ready for family reunification. The situation can be even more complicated when parents in the country without legal permission have U.S.-born children, said Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University who studies deportation enforcement. Some parents may choose to leave the child in the U.S., even if they are sent to another country, for safety, stability or the promise of a better future. Every situation is different, Stevens added. 'Nobody chooses their country of birth. Nobody chooses their parents,' she said. Gaby didn't choose to be in the U.S. with someone she had only known for a year, said Gomez. Pineda is afraid that in the midst of it all, Gaby will be lost in the system. 'But there's no way she can stay here without her mother,' Drew said. 'She needs to be reunited with her.' Different community groups have collaborated with Chicago Public Schools to create 'sanctuary teams' to help alleviate the anxiety and stress experienced by kids by providing essential resources for families, including medical assistance, clothing, food and mental health support. Some educators expressed concern to the Tribune about that support being cut off during the summer months. Other groups use school buildings as spaces to meet even through the summer, said Vanessa Trejo, a school-based clinician with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council. During the school year, Trejo worked with a boy whose mom was also detained and deported by ICE. She said it directly affected his ability to focus in class. Trejo met with the student twice a day. He would cry and they would play games. 'I try to sit with him. Just having a physical being around is huge,' Trejo student, who was born in the U.S., was in the process of obtaining his passport so he could be with his mother, she said. As for Gaby, her future is uncertain, Gomez said. Her mother is still in detention, and there is no timeline for when or where she'll be deported. Let alone when she'll see Gaby again. In the meantime, Gaby spends her days with an elderly neighbor, Maria Ofelia Ponce, 74, while Gomez is at work. Other times, Gomez's older daughter and his brother's family help take care of her. 'It breaks my heart to see her alone. To not know what will happen to her,' Ponce said. At Gaby's graduation, as mothers in dresses held their children in their graduation gowns, Gaby's family had a small gathering to celebrate her, hoping to help her feel loved.
New York Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Letitia James probing local cops for misconduct for working with Trump admin, ICE
State Attorney General Letitia James is conducting a sweeping misconduct probe of New York local law enforcement authorities who may be helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration, The Post has learned. The AG's office is targeting any cooperation between local law enforcement officials and federal agencies, including Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security. 3 Letitia James is conducting a sweeping misconduct probe of New York local law enforcement authorities who may be helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration, The Post has learned. Robert Miller Advertisement A letter from the office to Oswego County Sheriff Don Hilton requested any agreements between the office and any federal agency 'concerning the enforcement of federal immigration law' – and it also asks for documentation about cops receiving training on enforcing federal immigration. The letter cited a section of state law on official misconduct. 'Attorney General is conducting an investigation pursuant to New York Executive Law § 75(3) and has reasonable cause to believe that the Oswego County Sheriff's Office has information relevant to that investigation,' Lillian Marquez, deputy bureau chief of the AG's Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office, wrote in the letter obtained by The Post. Advertisement The AG demands that the sheriff turn over any documents or information about ICE detainer requests and the detection, apprehension, or detention of people who have 'allegedly violated immigration law.' The attorney general's office also requested information concerning 'stops initiated by any member' by the Oswego sheriff's office — including traffic stop reports, body worn camera and video footage and recordings. 3 A child attempts to embrace her father as he is escorted by federal agents with other detainees to vehicles after exiting an Intensive Supervision Appearance Program office on June 04, 2025 in New York City. Getty Images All communications between or among any member of the sheriff's office and any member of Homeland Security or its sub agencies — including CBP, and ICE at traffic stops is also requested. Advertisement New York State is under an executive order — signed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2017 and continued by Gov. Kathy Hochul — that restricts or bars law enforcement from aiding in investigating, arresting or deporting illegal immigrants. 'Law enforcement officers have no authority to take any police action solely because the person is an undocumented alien,' the Sept. 15, 2017, order said. 3 Joaquin Rosario (in white shirt), 34, from the Dominican Republic, is detained by plainclothes officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after his court hearing in a hallway outside of a courtroom at New York-Federal Plaza Immigration Court inside the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York City. AFP via Getty Images James' office sent a June 11 letter conducting a sweeping inquiry for documents from the Oswego County Sheriff's Office, where ICE raids have been conducted. Advertisement Sources familiar with the letter told The Post more counties will likely be targeted in the coming days by James. The Nassau County Sheriff's Office received a similar letter earlier this year over reports that it was involved in the 'enforcement of federal civil immigration law.' Upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik, who grilled Hochul over New York's sanctuary policies during a fiery congressional committee hearing last week, blasted James for declaring a 'war against law enforcement.' 'Kathy Hochul and Tish James' New York is illegals first, New Yorkers last,' Stefanik, who is mulling a run for governor next year, told The Post. 'This is a continuation of Kathy Hochul and NY Democrats' war against law enforcement. Just last week, Kathy Hochul embarrassed all New Yorkers when she was unaware of the violent crimes committed by illegals against New Yorkers including being burned alive, raped, and molested.' Stefanik said she stands behind 'President Trump, federal law enforcement, and our County Sheriffs who are working every day to restore law and order in our communities, fulfilling their constitutional oaths.'
Chicago Tribune
7 days ago
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Two people detained on Father's Day at Broadview immigration center
Natalia Cardenas, 28, cried on Father's Day. The Cardenas family arrived in Chicago from Colombia three years ago and believed Jose Manuel, 49, was reporting for a routine appointment as part of the asylum process — a form of protection for people fleeing danger in their home countries. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Cardenas' father. After that, their calls to him stopped going through. 'We don't know where he is … whether he's OK,' Cardenas said in tears, in front of an immigration processing center in Broadview after watching her dad go inside. Manuel was detained with a woman, also from Colombia, according to an immigration attorney who was with them during their appointment. On Friday, dozens of families in immigration proceedings received a text message from the federal government instructing them to report on Sunday to the Broadview center for a check-in appointment. Most left their appointment wearing ankle monitors and were given instructions to report to an office downtown that houses the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, an alternative to detention through check-ins or other forms of supervision, such as ankle monitors. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment confirming the number of detainees or the reason for their detention. The processing center in Broadview is usually the first stop for individuals arrested by ICE in Illinois. At the processing center in the western suburbs, ICE determines whether to initiate removal proceedings, the formal process by which the United States determines whether an immigrant must leave the country. Because Illinois is prohibited from operating immigration detention centers, if someone is detained, they will be sent to a detention center in a neighboring state while they wait for trial. Cardenas didn't know where her father would go or how to get in contact with him. 'We don't have a lawyer,' she said Sunday. 'We don't have a way to pay for a lawyer.' The messages from ICE, along with an increased number of arrests at immigration courts and other offices in the area, represent an escalation from previous immigration procedures, according to Tenoch Rodriguez, deportation defense organizer with Resurrection Project. On June 4, advocates estimated 20 people were detained after they reported for appointments to an ISAP office in the 2200 block of South Michigan Avenue. '(It is) not normal for this many people to show up on Saturday and Sunday,' Rodriguez said. 'It's not even normal for this many people to be showing up on a weekday.' Immigration attorneys and local officials gathered outside the Broadview processing center on Sunday to offer legal assistance and translation help. The children of those inside waited for hours, playing in the grass. Some family members held onto one another for comfort. A 7-year-old girl named Diana brought her pet green parakeet with her. She played with the small bird and fed it tangerines as she waited for her mother to come out of the facility. ICE officials tried to detain the mother, according to Diana's grandfather, Francisco, but she begged for more time because her child was waiting. She was instructed to report the next day to the same ISAP office where the 20 arrests occurred a little over a week ago. Francisco requested that his last name and the name of her mother not be used, citing concerns about potential retribution from the government. 'We were planning to celebrate all together today, and instead we're here,' Francisco said. 'We're glad she wasn't detained today, but it's hard. We don't know how much time we have.' Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and chief architect of President Donald Trump's immigration policies, said late last month that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should make at least 3,000 arrests a day, which marks a dramatic increase for the federal agency since Trump took office. Many of the arrests nationwide appear to be taking place in immigration court, which has sparked fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants accustomed to remaining free while judges grind through a backlog of 3.6 million cases, typically taking years to reach a decision. Now they must consider whether to attend their hearings and possibly face detention and deportation, or skip them and forfeit their bids to remain in the country. When immigration attorney Kalman Resnick was informed Friday afternoon that two of his clients had a check-in appointment at the Broadview center, he immediately reached out to the federal government for answers but was met with silence. 'We called starting at 1 o'clock on Friday, 'Please tell us why our clients are being called.' None of the calls and none of the emails were returned,' Resnick said. 'We went to political leaders like Sen. (Dick) Durbin's office and Sen. (Tammy) Duckworth's office and (Rep. Jesús) 'Chuy' Garcia's office and (Rep.) Delia Ramirez's office, and we tried to get them information, and they tried and didn't get any.' Attorneys and advocates were unsure as to why people were suddenly being called in over Father's Day weekend but broadly saw it as part of the White House's plan of arresting 3,000 immigrants a day. Immigration lawyers said it's easier to detain people at the transfer center. There is no rationale to who gets detained, said state Rep. Norma Hernandez, a Democrat from the western suburbs. 'People are being detained because of minor violations from over a decade ago,' Hernandez said. 'So we're helping them plan, figure out what they want to do with their assets.' One attorney who entered the facility with her client Sunday reported that more ankle monitors were being issued as part of a policy change with the SmartLINK app, a program used by ICE to track immigrants as a low-cost alternative to detention. ICE did not specify to whom the policy applied, she said. Marta Arango, 52, from Colombia, was given an ankle monitor and told to report back every two weeks. She left with her 9-year-old daughter and husband after their appointment. 'It feels horrible. We're not criminals,' she said. 'And the one who's going to suffer the most is our daughter.'
San Francisco Chronicle
15-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Very scared' immigrants continue to answer ICE summons as protesters target S.F. building
Dozens of protesters returned Sunday to a nondescript, two-story white building in an alleyway in San Francisco's South of Market where Bay Area residents working to legalize their immigration status were summoned by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this weekend. Activists suspected a trap and brought immigration attorneys to counsel confused immigrants and their families who feared violating the terms of their conditional release if they failed to show and arrest if they did appear. So far, the office has remained locked and closed, as protesters chanted and banged drums at the Tehama Street building. 'People were very scared and very panicked,' said Luis Angel Reyes Savalza, a San Francisco deputy public defender. 'It's very irregular to receive a last minute message to report on a weekend. In my 10 years of practicing, I've never heard of reporting on a weekend.' Savalza and other attorneys, most volunteering their time, said Saturday they assisted more than 50 participants in the Alternatives to Detention or Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. About 7.6 million immigrants participate in the program, which allows them to live at home as their cases are processed, according to ICE figures from October. Four program participants who received similar text messages were arrested after reporting to the ISAP office in Fresno on Saturday, Savalza said. 'We have a very strong reason to believe that our mobilization and support stopped ICE from detaining people at the office yesterday,' Sanika Mahajan, an organizer from Mission Action, said Sunday. ICE officials did not immediately return a request for comment Sunday. The mysterious weekend reporting requests coincided with massive No Kings Day marches and rallies in San Francisco and nationwide in response to a growing opposition movement to President Donald Trump as he pushes to deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. The text messages, sent in Spanish, told recipients to report to the Tehama Street facility during business hours Saturday or Sunday. 'If you do not present yourself according to instructions it will be considered an infraction,' the messages read. Savalza said attorneys have counseled immigrants who went to the facility to inform their reporting officer and to verify their arrival with a photo at the location. Immigrants continued to show up Sunday, though it remained locked in the morning. Protesters circled in front of the front door, chanting and holding signs, such as 'I.C.E. Out the Bay.' Anti-ICE graffiti remained on the walls from the day before. In the past, ICE protests have focused on more high-profile buildings such as the field office on Sansome Street and the San Francisco Immigration Court on Montgomery Street.
San Francisco Chronicle
14-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Protesters rush to avert deportations after ICE tells immigrants to come to S.F. office
A small office building in San Francisco's South of Market became the scene early Saturday of a hastily organized protest against the Trump administration's aggressive deportation policies as activists scrambled to block the federal government from detaining more immigrants. About 200 protesters began marching outside 478 Tehama St. at 7 a.m. after immigrants received texts Friday ordering them to check in with officials this weekend. Activists had anticipated that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has an office at the address, would try to detain immigrants who showed up. As many as 25 immigrants including families arrived by about 11 a.m., but the office appeared closed and no one had entered or left. Instead, activists met with the immigrants outside and connected them with lawyers. The action came ahead of the No Kings Day march and rally in San Francisco and nationwide amid a push by President Donald Trump to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally and a growing and sometimes unruly opposition movement. Many of the protesters had departed by 11 a.m., but organizers said they would stay because the ICE text messages had told immigrants to come during business hours Saturday or Sunday. A resident of Richmond in the East Bay who came with her husband, son and daughter to the San Francisco building just after 8:30 a.m. said she received a text message from ICE on Friday telling her to come to the office. It frightened her, but she felt she should go. 'I thought it was really weird because they work Monday through Friday,' the woman said in Spanish. She texted back asking about that, and who was texting her, but did not get a response. The woman said she and her husband, 18-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter have been in the United States for 2½ years, regularly meeting with immigration authorities, attending video sessions and sending photos. The building, on a SoMa side street, houses the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which is run by ICE, according to Sanika Mahajan, an organizer with immigrant advocacy group Mission Action. The location has seen fewer detentions — and protests — in the past couple weeks than has the ICE building on Sansome Street or the San Francisco Immigration Court on Montgomery Street. Mahajan said the immigrants face a predicament. If they don't show up to check in with immigration officials, they could face deportation for not following necessary steps in their cases. If they do show up, they could be detained and deported by ICE, she said. ICE officials did not immediately respond to Chronicle requests for comment Saturday. Several immigrants who arrived Saturday morning said they are part of an ICE program that allows them to live at home as their cases are processed. ICE says about 7.6 million immigrants are in the program, known as Alternatives to Detention or the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, as of October. 'ATD-ISAP enables aliens to remain in their communities — contributing to their families and community organizations and, as appropriate, concluding their affairs in the U.S. — as they move through immigration proceedings or prepare for departure,' the agency says on its website. According to news reports, ICE has been using text messages to alert participants in the program that they must come to an agency location. The practice has picked up in recent weeks as the administration pushed to increase arrests and deportations. The actions have spread fear and apprehension throughout immigrant communities. Nancy Hormachea of National Lawyers Guild, who was at the ICE office Saturday morning, said those getting messages to appear there seem to be part of the ADT program. 'The only thing we know about the people that are told to show up today are people who have already been processed by immigration because they entered the country without papers. And they are not people who have criminal history,' she said. 'And now they've decided that all those programs were unlawful and the new laws on expedited removal are in place.' Immigrants were comparing paperwork and communication from ICE in an attempt to understand what was going on. Many took photos of themselves in front of the building, presumably to prove they were there if needed. A Nicaraguan who came to the building with her 5-year-old daughter said she was notified late Friday that she had to check with immigration officials between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday or Sunday, though she was next scheduled for an appointment Wednesday. The Richmond woman who came with her family said she was relieved to see the protesters there Saturday and to receive support and assistance. 'On one side, I felt emotional to see all the support for us immigrants — but also scared about what's going to happen,' she said. 'I have a lot of questions without answers,' she said. 'Thanks to God that there are people there supporting us. I believe a lot in God.'
