CHICAGO LAWN — The family of Omar Huerta Cisneros is still trying to piece together what happened after he went for a walk in his Southwest Side neighborhood and was taken away by two masked immigration agents this month.
The Oct. 15 detainment of Huerta Cisneros, a permanent U.S. resident, sent his family scrambling. For the next two weeks, family members alerted as many people as they could but weren’t able to find him. Immigration authorities didn’t answer questions about where he was, they said.
Adding to their distress, they knew Huerta Cisneros wasn’t likely to get in touch with them on his own. The 54-year-old has schizophrenia, and he “doesn’t have the mental capacity to reach out to anybody,” said Araceli Favela, his sister-in-law.
“He doesn’t know anybody’s phone number,” she added. “He does not even have a cellphone himself.”
The family posted on social media and sought help and information from area elected officials, the Mexican consulate, news outlets and ICE.
When they finally tracked him down this week, Huerta Cisneros was on the streets of suburban Franklin Park.
Family members believe immigration agents dropped him off there — possibly a day after detaining him. But no one contacted the family, and they don’t know where he slept during his time away from home.
“He said something about ‘They said it was too far’ to take him home,” Favela said.
ICE still hasn’t provided them with any details.
Potential Violation of Consent Decree
Huerta Cisneros’ detainment may have violated a 2022 consent decree that bans warrantless arrests unless agents have probable cause to believe someone is in the United States unlawfully and is a flight risk, said Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
“All of those different factors play into the ability of immigration agents to conduct an arrest,” Tsao said. “And we would argue that anything short of some determination of probable cause and flight risk would constitute an unlawful arrest.”
Huerta Cisneros’ family doesn’t believe authorities had a warrant for him. While not a U.S. citizen, he is a permanent resident with a green card allowing him to live and work in the country legally.
Edwin Yohnka, a spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, said the details of Huerta Cisneros’ detainment are “stomach-turning and awful” and law enforcement should have a “clear reason for detaining anyone” no matter how long.
“No lawful permanent resident should be disappeared by their government for walking down the street because of their ethnicity, race or language that they speak,” Yohnka said, adding that “such activity is illegal and unconstitutional.”
Spokespeople for ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and Homeland Security Investigations didn’t respond to requests for comment.
‘It Wasn’t Right’
Huerta Cisneros typically stays near his home in Chicago Lawn, and his family believes he was walking to a grocery store about a block and a half away when he disappeared.
Without a video from a “kindhearted soul,” the family “wouldn’t know what happened to Omar,” Favela said.
Someone, possibly a neighbor, took and circulated a video of the arrest, which apparently happened on West 63rd Street. It shows one masked immigration agent walk Huerta Cisneros to the side of a red Chrysler Pacifica. Another agent joins them, and the agents appear to place Huerta Cisneros inside the van before sliding the door closed, getting in and driving off.
The video soon made its way to Rosa Garcia, a pastor at the church where Huerta Cisneros helps with a food pantry.
Garcia has known Huerta Cisneros for 15 years. She was worried for him and his family when she saw the video.
“It wasn’t right,” Garcia said. “He wasn’t doing nothing, and he’s not mentally well, so I was thinking, ‘He’s not a danger to anyone.’”
Garcia sent the footage to Huerta Cisneros’ niece, who shared it with his mother.
The family quickly mobilized. They posted about the detainment on social media and contacted Reps. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and Delia Ramirez, among others. Family members also tried to find Huerta Cisneros using the unique identification code, known as an A-number, he received when he came to the United States from Mexico as a child in the ’80s. He was issued a green card in 1988, Favela said.
A name similar to Huerta Cisneros’ appeared in the ICE database, but the family wasn’t certain it was their missing loved one, and the site didn’t provide enough information for them to verify. The Mexican consulate tried to help, but ICE also refused to share details with consulate officials, Favela said.
The family’s social media push likely helped their search. By Tuesday morning, Favela received tips about someone matching Huerta Cisneros’ description near a Walgreens in Franklin Park. She rushed to the area and found him.
Favela said she believes her brother-in-law was taken to the ICE detention facility in Broadview, where he was fingerprinted, photographed and told to sign something, though she’s not sure what. From her conversations with him, she thinks he was released the next day, though his condition has made it hard for her to fully understand his experience.
After Huerta Cisneros’ release, people in the area fed him and gave him money, Favela said.
ICE didn’t respond to the family’s requests for information until Thursday, after they had found Huerta Cisneros and after Block Club contacted ICE about him. The agency’s email said no one with Huerta Cisneros’ A-number was in custody, but the agency’s database still includes someone listed as “Omar Huerta-Cisneros,” with the same birth date as Huerta Cisneros, as remaining in custody.
Favela said the family is ecstatic about being reunited.
“I’m not a religious person, but this is starting to make me wonder if there is something behind this,” Favela said. “He’s so fortunate — he doesn’t realize how fortunate he is.”
Huerta Cisneros is one of at least a handful of permanent residents who immigration agents have detained in Chicago this year. The lengths of time they’ve been detained have varied.
Favela said the family isn’t certain what their next steps might be or if they’ll pursue any legal action.
“The family needs to get together to figure this out,” she said, noting the episode hit Huerta Cisneros’ 82-year-old mother particularly hard. “His mom is beside herself. Her blood pressure was all over the place. This impacted her the most.”
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