BERWYN, Ill. (
WGN) — Activists, community members and elected officials are calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release a detainee who was preparing to make an organ donation to save his brother’s life.
A vigil was held Monday evening for José Gregorio, a 43-year-old from Venezuela, who has been held in an immigration detention center for nearly a month.
Gregorio was preparing to donate a kidney to his brother, José Alfredo Pacheco, 37, who has end-stage renal disease. Pacheco said his brother is his lifeline to surviving and the only family member he has here to help him.
“This is literally a matter of life and death,” attorney Peter Meinecke with The Resurrection Project told Nexstar’s WGN.