After nearly two mostly uneventful decades, Francisco Panuco’s modest pursuit of the American Dream was abruptly shattered.
The immigrant from Durango, Mexico, was taken from his Northwest Side home in the early hours of May 31 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to one of his sisters, Maria Gabriela Panuco.
“They took him out of the bathroom when he was in the middle of showering,” said Panuco, 45, telling her younger brother’s story at a news conference outside City Hall on Tuesday.
“It’s not right that after 18 years they want to deport him,” she said. “He was an exemplary father with a seven-year-old daughter.”
Francisco Panuco, 43, worked in construction, his sister said. He was the breadwinner for the household and used to drop his daughter off at school before work.
His daughter and wife were in an adjacent room when ICE entered the house in Belmont Cragin and detained him, Panuco said.
A few others at the news conference put their arms around her as she began to cry. The group of about two dozen wore the green shirts of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, a nonprofit organization for immigrant workers the two siblings belong to that organized the news conference.
They hoped to draw attention to the case before the Belmont Cragin resident’s hearing in two weeks. He could be deported the next day if it goes against him.
He is being held at an ICE facility in Wisconsin, where another Chicago resident has also been held since the start of the year, organizers said. ICE detainees cannot be held in Illinois because it is a sanctuary state.
The group chose City Hall because they said Chicago lawmakers weren’t stopping ICE from collaborating with data brokers to find undocumented immigrants.
Last year, Mijente, an immigrant advocacy organization that’s supporting Panuco, published a report saying ICE was contracting data brokers specifically to skirt sanctuary city laws.
“We have these deportations because the people we put in power don’t fulfill their promises to stop ICE,” said Angel Ortiz, an immigration organizer with the nonprofit.
After 18 years with nothing more serious than DUIs, Ortiz didn’t know why ICE detained him.
“As for why they picked him up, I have no idea,” Ortiz said. “He has no felonies. For him to fall on their radar is something I don’t understand.”
His case is exactly the opposite of the kind that they are supposed to pursue, Ortiz said, according to guidelines that President Joe Biden established last year.
“ICE is supposed to only deport people who are a danger to the public,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz grew up with undocumented parents and said Panuco’s case is the kind of nightmare scenario that his parents lived with daily.
“There’s a real fear that we don’t have rights, that ICE can show up when they want and do what they want,” he said.
One of Panuco’s neighbors attended the news conference and spoke about the impact of Panuco’s case on the Belmont Cragin community, which is home to the largest Hispanic population in Chicago and nearly 80% Hispanic, according to U.S. Census figures.
“It’s a community made up of immigrants,” said Celeste Adame, who moved to the neighborhood around when Panuco did. “As a parent and immigrant, I’m terrified for what this means for our community.”
The group then marched to Adams and LaSalle streets, near where Biden was supposed to be. They wanted to march to Biden to draw attention to the fact that it’s his guidelines that ICE is ignoring by pursuing Panuco, they said.
As the group chanted slogans, his family wondered what would happen if he was deported.
“He can’t go to Mexico,” Panuco said. “It’s very violent. There’s no work there.”
Maria Carmen Panuco, another sister, was there as well.
“He’s a good father,” said the older sister. “In Mexico there’s nothing for him. His daughter’s here.”
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
