Cicero man seeks answers after brother detained by ICE

Carmelo Martinez was already at work Friday morning when he got an unexpected call from his brother telling him he had been picked up by immigration agents outside of their Cicero home and would be deported to their native Mexico.

Martinez, 34, of Cicero, said he doesn’t know why U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained his brother, Antonio Martinez, who had been on his way to work as a mechanic. He’s spent the past four days trying to reach his 38-year-old brother.

“It’s unjust that without a motive, they took him,” Martinez said in Spanish. “Without an order of arrest, they took him away. We don’t know anything.”

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On Wednesday, ICE confirmed it had detained Antonio Martinez on Friday, citing past arrests including a 2019 battery conviction. The federal agency said he would be detained pending a hearing in front of an immigration judge.

He joined Jose Landaverde, a longtime immigration activist, Tuesday in Little Village to speak out about recent cases of people detained by ICE in the Chicago area. Landaverde said he was denouncing President Joe Biden, who has not stopped deportations since he took office earlier this year.

Martinez said even with a change in the White House, immigration laws remain the same. Martinez said many people are scared to speak out when someone is detained by immigration officials.

“The raids are still the same, the separation of families are still the same, the detentions are still the same, the deportations are still the same,” Martinez said in Spanish. “So nothing has changed; everything is the same.”

There were more than 21,000 people in ICE custody across the country as of May 28, according to data maintained by Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The number of people in ICE custody has fluctuated during the coronavirus pandemic. In May 2019, there were more than 49,000 people in ICE custody, according to the data.

Antonio Martinez has lived in the U.S. since he was a teenager, and he has two children of his own, his brother said. Antonio Martinez does not have legal authorization to live in the U.S., but he did not think his brother had been an issued a deportation order, Martinez said.

He knows his brother was detained around 8:30 a.m. Friday outside of their Cicero home. Immigration agents left his brother’s truck with the windows rolled down and left the keys in their mailbox, Martinez said.

He later learned his brother was moved to the McHenry County Jail, one of three jails in Illinois that houses people facing deportation. He traveled to the jail to see his brother but was told he was in quarantine because of COVID-19 regulations, Martinez said.

The Cicero resident said he was worried about his brother because of what he’s heard about the conditions of ICE detention. He plans to fight to get his brother out of immigration detention.

Last week, three people in ICE custody at the jail were in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, said Deputy Kevin Byrnes, from the McHenry County sheriff’s office. As of Sunday, there weren’t any active cases of COVID-19, according to ICE statistics.

Elvia Malagón’s reporting on social justice and income inequality is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.