A day after authorities deployed pepper spray against demonstrators outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview, a group of workers, community members and lawmakers gathered there to call for the release of a day laborer detained while walking to a barbershop in the Little Village neighborhood.
Willian Giménez González, who came to Chicago from Venezuela in 2023, was with his wife when he was detained Friday, attorney Kevin Herrera said in Broadview. Neither Herrera nor Giménez González’s wife have heard from him since, Herrera said, and they do not know where he is.
“These are trying times for the legal system and the rights it protects,” Herrera said. “But the community assembled here knows that people hold the powerful to account. We will fight for Willian, and we will see to it that he is free to be with us in Chicago and to contribute to the city in all of the ways he has since he arrived. That’s a promise.”
Herrera and others at the Saturday news conference said they think Giménez González’s arrest was related to his participation in a 2024 lawsuit against Home Depot, Inc. and the city of Chicago that contends security personnel profiled and struck Giménez González while he was outside a store seeking day work.
Reaction to his detainment reflects the fear and uncertainty that many people are facing right now, said Jonáss Mendoza, Giménez González’s friend and a day labor organizer for the Latino Union of Chicago.
“For this to happen to a person, a friend, companion and member who has been there for the fight and for the fight of others to raise their voice, this is an injustice,” Mendoza said in Spanish.
For Geovanni Celaya, a Latino Union suburban outreach specialist, the detainment is part of “a broader effort to silence or harm workers, activists, community leaders who dare to resist exploitation.”
“You’re talking about working families that have to go out there,” Celaya said. “They don’t have the privilege to stay home and not worry about these struggles. They’re directly impacted, and they’re directly involved on a day-to-day basis in trying to defy this administration.”
Giménez González’s plight comes nearly a week after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced a Chicago-based immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” It’s unclear how many people have been arrested in the area, but advocates have said the number of calls to their hotlines has been unusually high. The administration of President Donald Trump contends it has detained the “worst of the worst” in the operation.
An ICE spokesperson provided a statement Saturday confirming that Giménez González was arrested.
“There is nothing unjust about enforcing the law and ensuring this illegal alien adheres to the laws of the United States,” the statement said. “ICE arrested Willian Alberto Gimenez Gonzalez for being in the country illegally.”
Democratic U.S. Reps. Delia Ramírez and Jesús “Chuy” García both attended Saturday’s event and called for Giménez González’s release.
“Willian has to be released if we are a country of freedom and justice,” Ramírez said in Spanish. “Freedom and justice is what we say when we make our commitment to this country. Justice says Willian has to be in the house with (his wife) Mary, today.”
Ramírez added: “I want to say it directly, we will never stop defending immigrants in this city and in this state. Never.”
García also denounced other recent alleged ICE activity in the Chicago area, including the fatal shooting of a man Friday in Franklin Park by an ICE official.
The man, whom federal officers identified as 38-year-old Silverio Villegas-González, was shot and killed after he allegedly attempted to flee from a traffic stop and struck an officer with his vehicle, leaving him with serious injuries. The shooting occurred shortly after Villegas-González took his sons to school, according to a GoFundMe campaign created for him.
“Silverio passed away after ICE agents shot him fatally, leaving behind not only loving family and friends, but also a legacy of warmth, resilience, and deep compassion,” the fundraising campaign states. “He was someone who always extended a helping hand, shared his smile freely, and showed up for those he loved — no matter the circumstances.”
An ICE spokesperson said on Saturday that the injured officer has been released from the hospital. He suffered severe back injuries, lacerations to the hand and substantial knee tears, the spokesperson said.
Multiple political figures have called for transparency around the fatal encounter. Mayor Brandon Johnson called the incident an “avoidable tragedy” on social media Saturday, saying no person should live in “fear of unlawful arrest, detention, harassment or violence.”
“We’ve said from the beginning that the presence of federal immigration agents on city streets will make life more dangerous for our neighbors, and for all,” Johnson said. “The seemingly unconstitutional actions yesterday incited dangerous conditions that put our communities at risk and ended in the loss of life.”
García called ICE’s recent actions an “abuse of power.”
Also Saturday, a few dozen protesters gathered outside the Naval Station Great Lakes, the North Chicago base that will reportedly serve as the hub for Trump’s immigration blitz. They chanted “No raids, no deportations!” and bore signs reading “Hands Off Chicago” and “No Armies In Our Cities.”
Sarah Onitsuka of the Milwaukee Fights Back Coalition, the group that organized the protest, said Villegas-González didn’t deserve to die.
“His life was taken because he dared to stand up to deportation and to the racist policies targeting immigrants,” she said. “We must remember that for our communities, an encounter with ICE is a matter of life and death.”
Joe Iosbaker, a 66-year-old activist from Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, also said he wants “justice for Silverio.”
“We have to fight for ourselves,” he said. “Trump, ICE, the whole ruling system, they’re trying to turn back the hands of time, using repression, using violence, and I’m so proud to be from Chicago.”