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CHICAGO — A couple is fighting to be near their son who may have days to live.
Kevin Gonzalez has stage 4 colon cancer. His parents are being detained in Arizona. They were arrested trying to cross the border from Mexico to see their son in Chicago. They are now pleading to be by his side.
It isn’t a question of whether Gonzalez’s parents will be released and deported back to Mexico; it’s a question of whether it will happen in time for them to say goodbye to their son before he dies.
Wednesday morning, 7 Chicago was able to briefly speak to his mother from the correctional center in Arizona where she is being held. She said she and her husband will stand in front of a judge on Thursday.
“I just want to tell you I love you. I miss you. And you will always have an angel in heaven looking over you,” Kevin Gonzalez said in Spanish in a recorded video to his parents.
Gonzalez recorded the video with the help of his brother from his hospital room at the University of Chicago Medical Center nearly one week ago. The next day, knowing he might just have days to live, the 18-year-old man boarded a plane to Mexico. His dying wish is to say goodbye to his parents, who are now sitting in a jail cell at Arizona’s Florence Correctional Center.
They were arrested last month trying to cross the border in a desperate attempt to be by their son’s bedside, after their request for a humanitarian visa was denied.
“My brother is my life. He’s everything for me,” Gonzalez’s brother Jovany Ramirez said.
Kevin Gonzalez has stage 4 colon cancer. He was diagnosed after falling ill while visiting his brother and other relatives in Chicago this past Christmas. While he was born in Chicago, Gonzalez lived in Mexico with his parents, who were both deported from the U.S in the past. It is why their emergency visa request was rejected.
His mother said their attorney has told her and her husband to plead guilty at their court hearing Thursday, but it’s not clear whether the judge would order them deported back to Mexico before their expected 30-day sentence is up next week. And that might be too late for Kevin, who has stopped eating.
“He don’t drink. Nothing. It’s very bad,” Ramirez said. “Judge please help my mother. He needs my parents.”
A spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Chicago shared the following statement:
“The case has been closely monitored through our Consular Protection Department. However, it should be noted that, due to the location of the facility where our nationals are detained, direct consular assistance falls under the jurisdiction of the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson, which oversees that region. They are already in contact with the attorney representing Kevin’s parents and following up to further assist them in the repatriation process.
“This Consulate General remains in constant communication and coordination with our colleagues in Tucson to continue providing consular protection to the family.”
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