Ein Mädchen, 12 Jahre, eine leere Straßenecke – und ein Staat, der ihr den letzten Elternteil nimmt

Delila stood in front of Logan Elementary School and looked, as she did every day, for her father’s face. It was routine, a small daily ritual between the two of them: She came out, he waved, they walked off together. But this afternoon the street was full of parents, full of voices and movement - and still the only person she wanted to find was missing. Instead she saw the landlord’s husband and her grandfather walking toward her. From the look in their eyes she understood that something irreversible had happened even before either of them spoke. And then the truth broke over her. Her father, Pablo Blancas-Gomez, had been arrested that morning in West Ridge while working on a house. The officers left his red work truck in the middle of the street, the key still in the ignition, as if a life had simply been frozen in place. When she was told, she went quiet - and then she started to cry. A girl who had first lost her mother and now her remaining parent.

Pablo was her only remaining parent. After her mother’s death he had raised her alone. He helped with her backpack in the morning, cooked his strange favorite sauce made of mayo and ketchup, drove her around in his red truck, played Pac-Man with her in the evenings. He was father, mother, friend, and daily life all in one. And because he knew how dangerous his life as an undocumented worker was, she usually warned him every morning: „Watch out for ICE.“ Only that day she said nothing. That thought eats at her. „Can I get a second chance?“, she said, crying, to her half-sister Kassandra.

Kassandra Ramirez ist 32, arbeitet Vollzeit, trägt ein Leben, das eigentlich schon schwer genug war. Nun musste sie über Nacht für ein trauerndes Kind sorgen: Schule, Essen, Termine, Trost, Papierkram, alles gleichzeitig. Sie sagt: „Das habe ich nicht geplant.“ Doch sie macht es – weil niemand sonst übrig ist.

Kassandra Ramirez is 32, works full time, carries a life that was already difficult enough. Now she had to care overnight for a grieving child: school, food, appointments, comfort, paperwork, everything at once. She says: „I did not plan this.“ But she does it - because no one else is left.

Since the arrest, Pablo has been held more than 1,500 miles away in El Paso. During the first phone call his voice trembled. The conversation lasted barely two minutes. He said „I love you.“ She said the same back, but afterwards an emptiness settled over her life. „I know my father is alive“, she told her sister, „but it feels like he is gone.“ The hearing on November 22 did not bring the result Delila and her sister had hoped for; files were missing, grotesque enough; now all hope rests on the December 2 date. In this interim the family receives all the support possible - for Delila, who has lost her last parent, and for Pablo, who has been held far from his home for weeks. We use these days to continue researching and securing every relevant piece of information. One thing is clear: Pablo paid his taxes reliably, lived quietly in the neighborhood, and ran his small repair work properly and openly. His story is not that of a man who wanted to hide, but of a father who tried to give his child a stable life.

His case is complicated. While the authorities call him a „violent criminal illegal alien“, the records show a different picture: The 2019 charges of property damage were dropped, the alleged labor theft from 2015 ended in an acquittal. At her school Delila receives support and counseling, but nothing balances out the loss she has suffered. Even the local alderman, Andre Vasquez, was shocked when he found the abandoned red work truck at the site of the raid, the key in the ignition - a silent sign of how abruptly her life was thrown off course.

In Chicago, lawyers now organize daily emergency workshops for short-term guardianship arrangements. What used to be two or three requests a year are now two or three calls a day. Teachers report children who barely sleep, barely eat, drift off in class, and flinch at every siren. Some families choose self-deportation - out of pure fear of an arrest that could land their children in foster care or with strangers. And some parents, according to aid organizations, even send their children back to countries they once fled, because they fear a separation they might not survive.

Since Trump’s new wave of nationwide raids, children like Delila stand alone in Chicago every day. Teachers report students who no longer sleep, no longer eat, drift off in class. Lawyers are flooded with calls because parents are frantically filling out emergency guardianship forms in case they cannot come home one day. Some families choose self-deportation just to stay together. Others send their children to countries where they have never lived. It is a climate that fills parents with fear and leaves children with a silence heavier than any raid.

Delila clings to one last video her father sent her, recorded a few days before his arrest. She laughs when she watches it. For a moment things feel lighter, the world is as it was before ICE drove into West Ridge that morning. But then the video ends - and the present returns. A girl who has already lost her mother waits for her father, who may never return.