(CHICAGO) — Chicago immigration judge Eva Saltzman on Thursday set a $2,000 bond for Ruben Torres-Maldonado, whose 16-year-old daughter Ofelia Torres is battling stage 4 cancer. Torres-Maldonado will be released from immigration detention as early as Thursday.
During the hearing, the judge not only ruled for him to be released, but also said he is now eligible to apply for a cancellation of removal based on the hardship his family would endure if he’s forced to leave the country. If his application is denied, he could still face deportation.
Despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier claiming Torres-Maldonado was a “criminal illegal alien” who has a history of driving offenses, Saltzman said she had no reason to believe that he posed a risk to the public.
“I see that you have very strong family ties and community ties in the United States and that you’ve hired an attorney which shows me that you take these proceedings very seriously,” the judge said. “And I see nothing in the record that would indicate to me that you pose a danger to the community.”
Torres-Maldonado also noted during the hearing that he has a valid license and insurance.
“I wish you much luck in the future, and I wish your daughter a full recovery,” the judge said.
DHS didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about the judge’s order.
In an interview with ABC News last week, 16-year-old Ofelia Torres recalled receiving a strange phone call on Oct. 18. She said her mom had just put on sterile gloves and was helping to drain the ascites — a buildup of fluid — in her abdomen when it came.
“The first call that came through was Walgreens, and so we just declined the call. It was probably just my medication,” Torres said. “Another call came through and it said prison slash jail and I was like ‘Why is the prison calling me?’ But in my head, I kind of knew, I think they got my dad.”
Since learning that federal immigration agents arrested Torres-Maldonado at a Home Depot in Niles, Illinois, on Oct. 18, Ofelia has made it her mission to continue fighting her stage 4 cancer diagnosis and her father’s possible deportation too.
ABC News interviewed the teen at her home in Chicago last week as part of a “Nightline” story on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement mission in the state. Dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” by the administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) campaign targeting undocumented people in Chicago and greater Illinois.
Torres-Maldonado is one of more than 2,800 undocumented immigrants that the Trump administration says it has apprehended in the Chicago area since they announced the operation in early September.
At a recent press conference, attorney Kalman Resnick, who is representing Torres-Maldonado, said federal agents surrounded his client’s vehicle, smashed the window of his truck and “dragged” him into a vehicle at gunpoint.
ICE is under the supervision of the DHS. In a statement sent to ABC News before the hearing, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Torres-Maldonado backed into a government vehicle while attempting to flee.
“His criminal history shows he has a history of habitual driving offenses and has been charged multiple
times with driving without insurance, driving without a valid license, and speeding,” McLaughlin said.
Torres denied the government’s claims that her father is a criminal.
“I’ve gotten a parking ticket, am I a criminal?” she said. “Sometimes we break a law without even knowing, does that make us criminal? I don’t know.”
Torres was diagnosed with metastatic aviolar rhabdomyosarcoma — an aggressive form of cancer — last December. The teen said she tried to keep her diagnosis private for several months, but told ABC News she is speaking out to defend her father. She said Torres-Maldonado instilled in her a sense of gratitude for the country they call home.
“I need the world to know my dad’s story and if that means letting the world know I have cancer, so be it. I don’t care,” she said. “I need my dad.”
The immigration crackdown in Chicago has come under scrutiny from advocates and legal experts including Mark Fleming, associate director of Federal Litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center, who told ABC News that many of the arrests and detainments have been unlawful.
So far, the human rights organization National Immigrant Justice Center has presented over 800 cases that they claim were unlawful under a consent decree — a court-ordered agreement between parties that resolves a dispute — limiting DHS’ ability to hold someone who entered into the country unlawfully without a bond hearing.
Fleming told ABC News the organization has 280 more cases that his legal team will soon present before a judge.
“It’s truly unprecedented. We are lead counsel in a class action lawsuit that has a consent decree that dictates when and how DHS, Department of Homeland Security, whether it’s Border Patrol or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, can stop and arrest people without warrants,” Fleming said.
“Regardless of what you feel about immigration or the levels of immigration or the level of enforcement — those are fair debates for us to have. What is deeply troubling here is the lawlessness, the violence, the cruelty, the carelessness with which they are doing this operation,” he later added.
Torres said despite how her father was treated, she has “nothing but love” for the federal agents who arrested her father.
“That’s all I have for everyone in this world. Love in my heart,” she said. “To the ICE agents who smashed my dad’s window, to the ICE agent who pointed a gun at my dad, I’m not mad at you … I just want you to know that that was not the right thing to do.”
– ABC News’ Ashley Schwartz Lavares, Jessica Hopper, Sally Hawkins, John Kapetaneas and WLS’s Tom Jones contributed to this report.
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