Omar David Panqueva Rojas had just stepped out of a rideshare outside Chicago's Midway International Airport on the morning of Aug. 2, suitcase in hand, aiming for a connecting flight bound for the nation's capital. His husband, Santiago Páez, followed close behind. The two men had spent months mapping out a run of unofficial afterparties timed to Karol G's stadium tour, hoping to give traveling fans of the Colombian superstar a place to keep dancing after the show. They never got past the curb. Federal immigration agents closed in before the couple reached the terminal, separated them, and took both men into custody.
Two Men Who Built a Stage for the Diaspora
Panqueva, who performs as DJ Tunjo, and Páez are the founders of La Mesa Presents, a Chicago-based company that organizes Latin-music gatherings meant to bring together scattered corners of the city's Colombian and broader Latino community. Panqueva, 26, had taken the stage at Chicago's Sueños Music Festival back in the spring, and the couple had spent weeks lining up a three-month circuit of parties to shadow Karol G's Viajando Por El Mundo Tropitour, which had launched nine days earlier at Soldier Field. In a mid-July social media post, Panqueva described the undertaking as the boldest venture he'd attempted yet in his push to unite Colombians and other Latinos scattered across American cities.
Agents surrounded the pair as they climbed out of their car outside Midway, splitting them up and transporting them to a detention facility in Clay County, Indiana. On the fundraiser page she later set up for legal costs, Santiago's sister, Silvia Páez, described the two men as more than a couple — calling them "a power team."
Dueling Accounts, and a Reason for Asylum Left Unsaid
Federal officials and the couple's relatives describe what happened next in different terms. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the men were held pending removal proceedings because tourist visas each had secured in 2021 had lapsed by the following year; the agency cited two specific expiration dates to CNN en Español. A separate account relayed to the Chicago Sun-Times described both visas more generally as issued in 2021 and expired by 2022.
Neither official account foregrounds why the two men are fighting to stay: Panqueva and Páez filed for asylum after saying they fled Colombia over persecution tied to their being a gay married couple, according to their attorneys' remarks to the Chicago Tribune . Neither man carries a U.S. criminal record.
Santiago's sister, Silvia Páez, said an officer riding along in the transport vehicle tried to ease the couple's nerves almost immediately, telling them at one point, in her retelling, that they had to come along, before predicting the two would be freed within hours given their clean records.
Nearly Two Weeks Apart Before Bond
That prediction didn't hold up. The men spent close to two weeks separated inside the Clay County facility before a bond arrangement freed both on Aug. 12, according to their attorney, Enrique Espinoza. Espinoza pushed back on the government's argument that the pair posed a flight risk, telling the Sun-Times: "These are not the worst of the worst, as they describe it." Both men, he said, had met every requirement tied to their asylum bids, filed with legal counsel soon after each arrived in the country — Panqueva in 2021, Páez a year later.
A Case Diverted Straight to Immigration Court
Freedom hasn't closed out the legal exposure. Because their asylum applications were still pending before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at the moment of arrest, the detention knocked the case out of that administrative review process entirely and sent it directly into immigration court, where backlogs routinely stretch on for years before a judge even hears the matter. Espinoza framed the arrest as part of a broader shift, saying federal authorities now seem willing to take almost anyone into custody no matter their background or record, even people who have followed every rule placed in front of them.
A Fundraiser, and a Tour Rolling On Without Them
The case has struck a nerve across Chicago's Latino nightlife scene, built as it is around two men whose business exists to give displaced Latinos a sense of home far from Colombia. A GoFundMe campaign organized by Silvia Páez had collected more than $23,400 toward a $26,000 goal as of Friday, money earmarked for attorney's fees and phone access so the couple could stay in contact while locked up — a total that will likely keep climbing and should be reconfirmed before publication.
Karol G's tour, meanwhile, keeps moving toward two of the country's largest Latino population centers: Houston's NRG Stadium on Sept. 27 and Miami's Hard Rock Stadium on Oct. 2, following stops in Los Angeles earlier this month. For fans in South Florida and Houston who plan to follow those shows, the case is a reminder that even performers embedded in the most celebratory corners of Latino culture aren't shielded from immigration enforcement.
Now reunited and living under electronic monitoring, both men say their pending asylum case remains their best chance at staying in the country where they built their careers and their life together.
