Crime & Law
Family Members in Limbo as Immigration Agents Detain Thousands in Chicago Area
Since the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reported that more than 3,000 people in the Chicago area were detained by federal immigration agents. The Trump administration has said its mission is to target criminals. There is growing pushback, however, with critics questioning the enforcement tactics and the motives behind these arrests.
Alexandra Gonzalez said it’s been more than a month since federal immigration agents took her stepfather while he was working as a landscaper in Evanston.
“They’ve been targeting a lot in Evanston for a while,” Gonzalez said. “They realized that a lot of landscapers go there.”
Her stepbrother, Adrian Mora Hinojosa, said he was working in a different area in Evanston when he got a call that his father was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Video footage shows an ICE officer pursuing Adrian Leon Gonzalez before he threw himself to the ground and surrendered.
“I felt so many emotions all at once,” Mora Hinojosa said. “I was on the floor, you know, obviously crying. It was a very hard moment; I couldn’t believe it.”
As immigration enforcement operations intensified across the area, Alexandra Gonzalez and Mora Hinojosa said their father kept working because the family depended on him. Now the stepsiblings are fighting to bring him home. He’s currently detained in Michigan.
“Compared to Broadview, it’s way better,” Mora Hinojosa said. He added that his father said “he would sleep on the bare floor (at Broadview) just with all the detainees around him.”
The family said Adrian Leon Gonzalez came to the U.S. from Mexico more than 25 years ago and built his life here, raising his children in the U.S.
“He loves his daughters, and I can say that with a passion, and his son,” Alexandra Gonzalez said. “He’s always been there for them no matter what. For me, he’s been the role model I didn’t have.”
Their case is just one of hundreds still unresolved.
Jhoanni Pineda-Mesa said he fled to Chicago two years ago because of political danger in the Dominican Republic.
“It says it right here that my life was in danger,” Pineda-Mesa said in an interview conducted in Spanish, as he pointed at his paperwork.
“During the immigration process, they show us the regulations we have to follow,” Pineda-Mesa continued. “The condition was that we had to submit the asylum before the end of the year, and I did it.”
He showed WTTW News a paper trail of his case. His immigration check-in slip reads “no wants, no warrants.” He said he would hear about arrests happening around immigration court but never thought it would happen to him. Then came his second check-in in October.
“I remember the officer being of Puerto Rican origin, and she tells me, ‘You’re arrested,’ and I ask why, and she says I’m arrested because I’m an illegal in this country,” Pineda-Mesa recalled. “I say, I have a process, and I have all my paperwork.”
Now he is speaking out about what he said was inhumane treatment when he was detained. He held back tears as he described how he pleaded with an officer to allow him to use the bathroom, but he wasn’t granted permission.
“I ended up urinating on myself,” Pineda-Mesa said. “I felt so bad because I’m not a criminal to be treated that way.”
He said the weeks that followed were an experience he’ll never forget.
Pineda-Mesa said he was first sent to west suburban Broadview, where he described being placed in a room with more than 200 men and having nowhere to sleep. After three days, he was transferred to a detention facility in St. Louis, Missouri, where he spent nearly two weeks. From there, he was shuffled to Texas, then back to St. Louis, and finally to Indiana.
“I remember being taken into a section of the jail where we were sharing spaces with actual criminals: people who were there for drugs and murder,” Pineda-Mesa said.
“I was in shock,” Pineda-Mesa said. “Other detainees who had been there for two to three months, and they were suffering mentally.”
With the help of a lawyer, he’s now back home in Chicago while his case remains open. He is working to replace his Illinois ID, Social Security card and work permit after he said federal agents threw them away.
“What’s happening inside — it’s inhumane,” Pineda-Mesa said. “I urge for people to go and see with your own eyes and talk with the people who are stuck there. There are people without legal representation and others being pressured to self-deport.”
For Adrian Leon Gonzalez’s family, visits and phone calls are their only connection.
“He might tell me that he’s a bit better, maybe to not concern me, concern us,” Mora Hinojosa said.
Alexandra Gonzalez and Mora Hinojosa said the man they know is a devoted, hardworking father who shouldn’t be sitting behind bars.
“I just want everyone to know that my stepdad did not deserve this,” Alexandra Gonzalez said. “He’s hardworking and does everything right and has no history of anything.”
A habeas corpus court order has been granted in the family’s case, meaning authorities must either present Adrian Leon Gonzalez before a judge or release him on bond within six days. The family should know more by Wednesday.
