Kevin Gonzalez, 18-Year-Old with Terminal Cancer, Dies A Day After Reuniting with Parents Released from ICE Custody

Kevin Gonzalez was just 18 when he found out he was dying. While visiting his brother in Chicago for the holidays, doctors told him he had stage 4 colon cancer. The disease had already spread to his stomach and lungs, leaving no treatment options.

His parents were living in Mexico. They had been deported by immigration officials in 2011 and had stayed there for more than ten years. When they heard their son was terminally ill, they did what any parent would do and tried to return.

Kevin’s parents asked for emergency visas, but the Department of Homeland Security denied both requests. Officials said it was due to their prior unlawful presence and earlier entries into the United States.

Desperate, they tried to cross the border without permission. On April 14, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents caught them in Douglas, Arizona. They were put in federal custody while their son was in a Chicago hospital, running out of time.

Kevin Gonzalez decided to fight back.

What happened next put the immigration system under pressure. Kevin Gonzalez spoke out, asking officials to let his parents go. According to NBC News, he pleaded, “I’m asking you to do whatever you can to release them. I just want to spend my last days with them.”

His grandmother, Virginia Amaya, told NBC News about his condition: “He has terminal colon cancer. It has invaded his stomach and lungs. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t eat.”

The case drew attention across the country.

The Mexican Consulate in Arizona spoke up for Kevin’s parents, asking for their release. Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro also got involved.

Last week, Kevin left the University of Chicago Medical Center on his own. He flew to his grandmother’s home in Durango, Mexico, hoping a judge would free his parents before he died.

After people spoke out, an immigration judge ordered Kevin’s parents to be released quickly on Thursday, May 7. According to ABC News, his brother Jovany Ramirez said ICE took them to the border the next day. Consulate officials helped them board a bus and arrange an emergency flight.

On Saturday, May 9, Kevin Gonzalez saw his mother and father again in Durango.

According to CNN, he told the network he wanted to spend Mother’s Day giving his mother “lots of hugs, over and over.”

His father told CNN what the reunion meant: “We went through a lot, and in the end, all I want is to be with him. We managed to make my son’s dream come true: to be with him again, to love him, to give him the love we could not give him during these months when he was not with us.”

His mother cried. “These tears are from emotion, from seeing him again, from touching him again, from telling him how much I love him,” she told CNN.

On Sunday, May 10, Kevin Gonzalez passed away.