The wife of Oscar Suarez, a resident of Albany Park, began raising funds on March 17 to support her family and cover legal fees following his detention by federal immigration agents earlier this month.
Suarez was taken into custody around noon on March 9 in the 4400 block of North Francisco Avenue, according to his wife Camila Ossa and Alderman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez. The case highlights ongoing concerns about immigration enforcement in Chicago neighborhoods and the impact on local families.
Ossa said Suarez, who came from Colombia four years ago and works in construction, is the primary breadwinner for their household. He is the father of an eight-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy. “It happened so fast,” Ossa told Block Club in Spanish. “I came out with my kids and I saw they had already put handcuffs on him. My daughter, she kept asking them to let her father go because he isn’t a bad man.” She added that Suarez was detained for driving without a license and is currently held at the La Salle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana. The family said he does not have a criminal record either in Chicago or Colombia.
Ossa described the emotional toll on her children: “I don’t know what else to do but try to be strong for my children. I need to be strong because they’re also suffering,” she said in Spanish. “My children spend their time looking out the window waiting for him. My youngest was comforting me the other day, asking me to be tranquil because he’s sure his father is going to return.” She launched a GoFundMe campaign last week aiming to raise $20,000 for bills, groceries, and legal costs. As of Tuesday morning, more than $16,000 had been raised from over 150 people.
Alderman Rodriguez-Sanchez said that while there was an initial surge of federal immigration agents during Operations Midway Blitz and At Large last fall under President Donald Trump’s administration, some agents have remained active in Chicago at lower levels since then. “They never left. And we have been hearing about abductions for the whole time,” Rodriguez-Sanchez told Block Club.
Rodriguez-Sanchez noted that besides Albany Park, communities such as Humboldt Park, Hermosa, and Belmont Cragin have also seen increased activity by immigration agents recently. “They are still operating and the volume has been slowly increasing as we get closer to spring. And of course, because of that we are trying to prepare for a possible comeback,” she said.
