Nathalie Vargas is ten years old. She hasn't been able to hug her mother since February. On Monday evening, the little girl stood in Chicago among relatives and people praying for Martha Gutiérrez to be released. Her plea to the judge was heartbreakingly simple: "I need my mom. Please, judge, release my mother." Her mother has been held in U.S. immigration detention for more than nine months. Over two minor shoplifting offenses from 1997, long before Nathalie was even born. On November 10, the immigration court halted the deportation proceedings. Her mother remained locked up anyway. The legal victory reached the detention facility, but freedom still hasn't.
Martha Gutiérrez has lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident since 1990. America has been part of her life for 36 years. In February 2026, she was returning from a family visit to Mexico. ICE agents arrested her at Chicago's Midway Airport. Two long-settled cases involving minor shoplifting offenses became the basis for her threatened deportation. After decades in Chicago, the mother of five was facing deportation to a country where she hadn't lived in roughly four decades.
Pastor Julie Contreras of United Giving Hope described the circumstances surrounding those thefts. Gutiérrez had been fleeing domestic violence with her daughters and had taken a few blouses and pairs of jeans. She was trying to escape an abusive situation with her children. Decades later, the U.S. government dug up that past and used it as the grounds for separating her from her family for months. The dollar value of the clothing isn't specified in the available reports. The consequences for her family, however, are still plain to see.
Gutiérrez had traveled to Mexico over the years and returned to the United States without any problems. This time, her trip ended in a detention facility in Kentucky. While another school year began outside, her children spent month after month without their mother. Nathalie, herself an American citizen, celebrated her birthday without her. Her sister María Elena describes family life as sad and empty now. They miss their mother's familiar smell and her cooking. Even the clean home Gutiérrez had always taken care of is painfully missed. The government's decision reaches into the smallest routines of a family's life.
On Monday, November 9, relatives gathered for a prayer vigil in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Twenty-one-year-old María Elena reminded everyone that her mother has no home in Mexico anymore. Her family is here. Crystal Serrano appealed to the judge to see Gutiérrez as a human being, as a mother and a grandmother. Nathalie was not allowed to attend Tuesday's hearing, either in person or by video. All she could do was hope the judge would hear her plea.
The decision came very late on November 10. The immigration court rejected the federal government's grounds for deportation and ordered the proceedings terminated. But ICE still did not release Gutiérrez. The government was still considering whether to appeal. The legal grounds for the proposed deportation had thus been rejected, while the mother remained in federal custody. Her next birthday is December 8.
Shortly before that, Donald Trump had acknowledged in a television interview that his deportation policies might be too harsh. He also acknowledged that this harshness had hurt his party in the midterm elections. At the same time, he appointed Stephen Miller as the new White House chief of staff. Miller had already threatened to fire senior ICE officials back in May because he considered their arrest numbers too low. Immigration enforcement operations were subsequently intensified. The political statements coming out of Washington sometimes sound like a moment of reflection. Inside the detention facilities, daily life goes on as before.
Pastor Contreras, seen in the video above, is calling on Trump to go after actual serious criminals. She is also preparing a request for a pardon from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Thousands of families are in a similar situation, she warned. Nathalie wants to hug her mother again. After nine months of detention, a judge has ended the deportation proceedings. Yet the little girl is still waiting for her mother to come home. The decision has been made. The door remains locked for now. Today, we're all knocking on that door again. Injustice has thick doors, but it hears every knock. Martha simply has to be free again in the next few days.
To be continued ...
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