A Chicago teenager who spoke out for her father’s release after he was detained last fall by immigration officials in a deportation case has died after battling a rare form of cancer.
Ofelia Giselle Torres Hidalgo, 16, died Friday from stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, the family said in a statement. Funeral arrangements are private.
The young man was diagnosed in December 2024 with the aggressive form of soft tissue cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
An immigration judge in Chicago ruled three days before Ofelia’s death that her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was conditionally entitled to receive a “cancellation of removal” because of the hardships his deportation would cause his US-born children who are American citizens, according to a statement sent by a lawyer representing Torres Maldonado.
The decision provides Torres Maldonado with a path to becoming a legal permanent resident and eventual US citizen, the statement said.
Ofelia was present via Zoom in last week’s hearing.
“Ofelia was heroic and courageous in the face of ICE detention and threatened her father’s deportation,” said Kalman Resnick, Torres Maldonado’s lawyer. “We mourn the death of Ofelia, and we hope that she will serve as a model for all of us to be brave and fight for what is right for our last breaths.”
Torres Maldonado, a painter and home renovator, was detained on October 18 at a Home Depot store in suburban Chicago as the area was at the center of a major immigration crackdown called “Operation Midway Blitz”, which began in early September.
Ofelia was undergoing treatment when she appeared in a video posted on a GoFundMe page set up for the family in October.
“Dad, like many other fathers, is a hard-working man who gets up early in the morning and goes to work without complaining, thinking about his family,” she said in the video. “I find it so unfair that hard-working immigrant families are being targeted just because they weren’t born here.”
In a wheelchair, she attended a hearing for her father in October. That day the family’s lawyers told the Judge that she was released from the hospital just one day before her father’s arrest so that she could see her family and friends. They added that Ofelia could not continue the treatment “because of the stress and disruption.”
Torres Maldonado’s lawyers asked for his release as his deportation case went through the system. A judge ordered a bond hearing after ruling in October that his detention was illegal and violated Torres Maldonado’s due process rights.
A judge later cited Torres Maldonado’s lack of criminal history while allowing his release on $2,000 bond.
Attorneys said Torres Maldonado entered the United States in 2003. He and his partner, Sandibell Hidalgo, also have a younger son.
The Department of Homeland Security had alleged that he had been living illegally in the United States for years and has a history of driving offenses, including driving without a valid license, without insurance and speeding.
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