CHICAGO, IL — Three children who are U.S. citizens have been released after being held by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at O’Hare International Airport until their parents, who are undocumented, could pick them up. The incident started around 3 a.m. Thursday, when immigration officials rejected the tourist visa of a cousin who was traveling with the children from Mexico, according to Anna Maran, organizing director at PASO, the West Suburban Action Project.
Maran said the children were released to their mother around 5 p.m. She told Patch that the cousin’s tourist visa was valid, but was denied, which left three children between the ages of 9 and 13 at O’Hare without an adult guardian.
Anthony Clark, an Oak Park teacher and local activist who came to O’Hare “as an ally in verb form” said the mother, who eventually came to the airport to pick up the children, is in the process of renewing her U-Visa.
Betty Alzamora, who was at the protest with Clark and other PASO volunteers, said the mother is not in deportation hearings, but that she “felt that even though she was showing up at the airport with a U-visa, there might be a problem.”
“She just didn’t feel safe,” Alzamora said. “There’s something really messed up,” she added, “that a person who had a legal valid visa, a tourist visa, to enter the United States [with these children] was denied entry. And that a mother [whose kids are U.S. citizens] had to go to another country’s consulate for help.”
Clark noted that the incident happened a day after President Donald Trump held a rally at which supporters started a chant calling for the deportation of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat and U.S. citizen.
“Juxtapose this against the American president who is basking in the rhetoric of ‘send (her) back,” Clark said. He paused, then added, “It’s deep.”
According to Maran, Customs and Border Patrol initially contacted the children’s parents to tell them they would have to pick them up. The mother then reached out to the Mexican Consulate because she was “afraid of being taken into custody or deported themselves if they went to the airport,” Maran said.
PASO was contacted by the consulate, which first worked to get the parents’ permission to release the children into the custody of PASO’s immigration lawyer, Mony Ruiz-Velasco.
Just before 4 p.m., Maran told Patch that Customs and Border Patrol had been reviewing Ruiz-Velasco’s request for over an hour.
“They said it would be 10 or 15 minutes,” Maran said.
The incident brought dozens of protesters to O’Hare International Airport, carrying signs that read “Free the Kids” and “Stop ICE.” They were joined by public figures that included Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D, IL-9) and Clark, a teacher and Congressional candidate.
Clark shared a video of Schakowsky as she spoke out:
“I am here to demand an explanation why they would waylay these two children,” Schakowsky said, referring to two girls and their cousin. “I’m going to go in and see why our government is acting this way to three minors that have every right to travel, three citizens of the United States of America.”
Schakowsky added, “I feel that it’s a kind of kidnapping of children by our government, and I am very fed up with what we are doing.”
She said she brought all her identification to talk to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol as a U.S. Congresswoman, adding, “Let them try and keep me out.”
The children were detained as fears about ICE raids and deportations continue throughout the Chicago area.
In 2017, detentions at O’Hare drew a large-scale protest after more than a dozen people — including legal residents of the U.S. — were detained despite a federal court order partially blocking newly elected President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Activists, attorneys and demonstrators flocked to O’Hare to demand their release.
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
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