ICE Abducts Man Suing Off-Duty Police for Abusing Day Laborers
“The Department of Homeland Security has become the department of state terror,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez.
Sarah Lazare and Ari Bloomekatz
Even though President Donald Trump says he is pivoting from plans to deploy the National Guard in Chicago — now eyeing Memphis as his next target — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers appear to still be escalating operations throughout the area, with devastating consequences.
Willian Gimenez, a day laborer, was reportedly abducted outside of a barbershop in Little Village, a neighborhood in southwest Chicago, by ICE agents on Friday. The Labor Union of Chicago and Raise the Floor Alliance organized a news conference with immigration rights advocates, public officials and labor groups there in solidarity like Arise Chicago, the Chicago Workers Collaborative and Workers Center for Racial Justice, who all gathered with Gimenez’s friends and family outside of an ICE facility in Broadview to demand his release.
Gimenez, who is in his late 30s and is from Venezuela, is one of five migrant day laborers involved in a federal lawsuit claiming that, among many other things, they “endured physical violence at the hands of off-duty Chicago Police Department officers” who were working as security officers for Home Depot, according to the complaint. The lawsuit also alleges “a conspiracy to criminalize day laborers’ attempts to find work in Chicago.”
Speakers at a Saturday morning news conference organized by workers’ advocates said they believe he was intentionally targeted because he is a plaintiff in that suit. (An ICE spokesperson, after In These Times and Workday requested comments about the abduction, defended the arrest but would not say where Gimenez was taken or being held.)
It was unclear if Gimenez was being held at the Broadview facility or elsewhere. No one at the news conference, where the mood was somber, appeared to know where he is. His disappearance also came on the same day an ICE officer shot and killed an undocumented man in the Chicagoland suburb of Franklin Park.
Gimenez’s wife, who was with him when he was snatched by federal agents, collapsed before the news conference could begin. After a brief period of recovery, she was able to join the press conference and stood in front next to elected officials, organizers, and community members calling for Gimenez’s release, and for an end to such attacks on Chicago communities.
While the exact medical reason for her collapse is unclear, organizers underscored to the crowd that witnessing loved ones being abducted has profound negative consequences, not only mentally, but physically. “This physically impacts us on a day-to-day basis,” Geovanni Celaya with the Latino Union told the crowd.
“Our movement is resilient,” he added, “we will not back down.”
Several elected officials attended the press conference, including Chicago Alder Rossanna Rodriguez, and Reps. Chuy Garcia and Delia Ramirez, who asserted that “the Department of Homeland Security has become the department of state terror.”
Latino Union of Chicago is one of the groups alleging Gimenez was targeted because of his involvement in the lawsuit and Samantha Royal, their director of institutional advancement, said at the news conference Saturday that Gimenez is a member of Latino Union and that there was “no reason” given for his arrest on Friday and that Gimenez, like all day laborers, has just been trying to make a living. She noted that Gimenez and the other workers involved in the suit were “brave” for doing so, and believes this is direct retaliation.
Kevin L. Herrera, the legal director of Raise the Floor Alliance, and attorney for Gimenez, said at the press conference that he was there “because Immigration and Customs Enforcement and, by extension, the United States federal government’s executive branch, has abducted my client.”
“He’s again been profiled, not only for being a Spanish-speaking person in another country, but for being someone who exposed racism and abuse of power in the United States,” Herrera added.
Occasionally, throughout the press conference, individuals, who activists assumed to be federal agents, entered and exited the ICE processing center wearing scarves and bandanas over their faces. At one point, the crowd erupted in chants of “Shame!” as a small group of masked individuals exited the processing center and got into a black vehicle.
According to City Bureau, the suit against several off-duty Chicago police officers, among others, alleges physical assaults of migrant workers and how they had been “choked, thrown around, punched, slapped and otherwise struck after they were handcuffed and brought into a security room at the Home Depot.”
In an Instagram post on Friday evening, Latino Union and Raise the Floor Alliance included a photograph of Gimenez with the text: “Ice disappears community leader after speaking out against day labor abuse at Home Depot.”
“ICE has not disclosed Willian [Gimenez]’s location,” another post read from the groups. “When Willian’s attorneys from Raise the Floor Alliance went to the Broadview ICE processing facility in an effort to locate him, immigration officials would not open the door.”
“Willian’s detention is not an accident,” they wrote. “Willian’s arrest is blatant retaliation for standing up for his rights and the rights of all day laborers.”
This article is a joint publication of In These Times and Workday Magazine.
Sarah Lazare is the editor of Workday Magazine and a contributing editor for In These Times. She tweets at @sarahlazare.
Ari Bloomekatz is Executive Editor at In These Times. He was previously the Managing Editor of Rethinking Schools and Tikkun magazines, and spent several years as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. Follow him @bloomekatz.
