Outside suburban Chicago ICE facility, calls for the release of a day laborer who accused cops of wrongdoing

Family members, elected officials and community residents called Saturday for the release of Willian Gimenez, a day laborer involved in a lawsuit that accuses off-duty police officers of ethnically motivated harassment and assault.

Gimenez, who is from Venezuela, was detained Friday by federal immigration agents in Little Village.

He was on his way to a barbershop with his wife Mari Torrealba around 11:30 a.m. Friday near Cermak Road and Washtenaw Avenue when they were pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The agents approached Gimenez, who was driving, called him by name and ordered him to get out of the vehicle. He was then placed in handcuffs and taken away, leaving his wife behind.

Gimenez is one of five day laborers who say in a lawsuit filed last year that they were beaten by off-duty police officers working security and other employees of the Home Depot at 4555 S. Western Blvd.

At a news conference Saturday outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, family members and other supporters said Gimenez was targeted because of his involvement in the suit.

Kevin Herrera, Gimenez’s lawyer, described him as kind and hardworking and said he is seeking asylum in the United States.

“My client’s detention and my inability to speak with him is not a mistake,” Herrera said. “He is exactly who [the Trump] administration fears and targets — someone who knows that he has rights in this country regardless of his skin color, the language he speaks or the country he is from.”

Herrera said he has tried to find out where Gimenez was taken, even knocking on the door of the Broadview facility, but has gotten no response.

ICE confirmed Gimenez’s arrest, saying he was arrested on a suspicion of being undocumented.

“There is nothing unjust about enforcing the law and ensuring this illegal alien adheres to the laws of the United States,” an ICE spokesperson said. “ICE arrested Willian Alberto Gimenez Gonzalez for being in the country illegally.

“Gimenez Gonzalez is an illegal alien with a history of not showing up to court, including when he failed to appear in immigration court in April of last year, where an immigration judge ordered him removed from the country. No one is above the law.”

Herrera said he will file a petition in the coming week to challenge Gimenez’s arrest.

U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, D-Ill., attended the news conference and called ICE’s actions an abuse of power, saying the agency was operating like a “secret political police.”

“If they can arrest someone for joining a lawsuit or simply for being Latino, what’s to stop them from getting any one of us?” Garcia said.

Gimenez’s arrest happened the same day that Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was killed by an ICE officer after the agency says he tried to flee a traffic stop and struck an officer with his car in Franklin Park.

Also Saturday, dozens of faith leaders held a Mass in a field across from Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, which ICE has been using as a baseto carry out stepped-up immigration efforts in the Chicago area.

The Rev. David Inczauskis asked those gathered to pray for the federal agents who have been carrying out the raids.

“We pray for the oppressors, for their conversion because we know that God stands on the side of the oppressed, and we want all people to be saved,” Inczauskis said.

Jailene Rodriguez, a high school teacher who was part of the group outside the base, said: “I’ve had students telling me that they are deathly afraid of their parents being taken from their jobs or on their way home. It is not fair to them. It is not right.

“And so even if I can do something small, even if it was just coming to this, through my religion, through my faith, giving them some sort of support and knowing that I can do something, it is still so much better than just standing there and not knowing what to do.”