Abel Orozco was on his way home from buying tamales for his family on January 26 when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers stopped him on the street in Lyons, Illinois, and detained him without a warrant. For more than two months since then, ICE has kept Abel locked in a detention center in Indiana and denied him an opportunity to see a judge. “We have been living in a crisis,” his wife Yolanda Orozco told reporters last month. When ICE abducted Abel, they not only robbed a family of their devoted father and grandfather, but also shuttered the family’s 20-year-old landscaping business that served communities throughout Chicago’s suburbs and provided financial support to 10 other families. The business was the Orozco family’s sole source of income to pay mounting medical bills as Yolanda fights cancer. Tell ICE to give Abel a day in court. The Trump administration is trying to deport Abel because over 20 years ago, Abel made a brief trip to Mexico to see his father after he had a stroke and received an expedited removal order at the border. Since then, Abel’s brother and nephew in Mexico have been kidnapped and disappeared and he now fears for his own safety if he is forced to go back. Besides this brief trip to care for his father, Abel has lived in Illinois for nearly 30 years and raised three U.S. citizen children. He is also a devoted husband to his wife Yolanda, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, and a loving grandfather to three children with another due this summer. Although Abel has a viable pathway to gain immigration status, he has never had a chance to present his case before an immigration judge because of his decades-old deportation order. Abel needs an opportunity to see a judge and seek permanent lawful status and, just as importantly, explain the harm his family and community in Illinois would face if he were forced to permanently leave the United States. ICE has the authority to provide Abel a day in court by issuing a charging document called a Notice to Appear, which would allow him the opportunity to present his case to a judge and request permanent lawful status. “My father has been here for over 27 years, he owns his own company, he cuts down trees for a living, he has never been arrested in his entire life,” Abel’s son Eduardo told reporters. “He just goes to work and he comes back to his family. He is loving, he is caring, he is responsible, he is someone to look up to, and he is an honest man and he should not have been arrested. I just want to ask the government to please look into who he is so they can do what’s right. Sign the petition to demand a fair day in court for Abel. | 
